The Redistribution of Wealth...Upward

After all the sturm and drang from the Republicans about President Obama's socialist agenda to "spread the wealth around," a new paper from University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez shows that that has already occured...but in an upward direction. The above graph illustrates just how bad the situation is.

What Professor Saez found, to quote Paul Krugmann of the New York Times, was "truly amazing:"

• since 2000, just the top 0.01% of income earners DOUBLED their cut of the nations total income to 6%
• As of 2007, the top 10% of American earners accounted for 49.7% of total wages, a level "higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the 'roaring" 1920s.'"
• "The top 1% incomes captured half of the overall economic growth over the period 1993-2007"
• "...while the bottom 99% of incomes grew at a solid pace of 2.7% per year from 1993-2000, these incomes grew only 1.3% per year from 2002-2007. As a result, in the economic expansion of 2002-2007, the top 1 percent captured two thirds of income growth."

So, as you hear complaints that President Obama's proposed health care surtax on the wealthy is somehow unfair, point to this report. After seeing these numbers, is it any wonder why there is so much anger being displayed at health care town halls nationwide? In my opinion, the anger is justified, it's just aimed in the wrong direction.