Scary new wage data

[Gonad the Barbarian]

The number of Americans making $50 million or more, the top income category in the data, fell from 131 in 2008 to 74 last year. But that’s only part of the story.

The average wage in this top category increased from $91.2 million in 2008 to an astonishing $518.8 million in 2009. That’s nearly $10 million in weekly pay!

You read that right. In the Great Recession year of 2009 (officially just the first half of the year), the average pay of the very highest-income Americans was more than five times their average wages and bonuses in 2008. And even though their numbers shrank by 43 percent, this group’s total compensation was 3.2 times larger in 2009 than in 2008, accounting for 0.6 percent of all pay. These 74 people made as much as the 19 million lowest-paid people in America, who constitute one in every eight workers.

Back in 1994, when the top category the government reported on was $20 million or more of compensation, only 25 people were in that rarefied atmosphere, and their average earnings came to just under $45 million in 2009 dollars.

From 1950 to 1980, the average income of the bottom 90 percent grew tremendously. Not so since then:

Table 3.pdf

Had income growth from 1950 to 1980 continued at the same rate for the next 28 years, the average income of the bottom 90 percent in 2008 would have been 68 percent higher, instead of just 1 percent more.

That would have meant an average income for the vast majority of $52,051, or $21,110 more than actual 2008 incomes. How different America would be today if the typical family had $406 more each week — less debt, more savings, and more consumption.

So how about the top? This is where the changes in incomes in these two eras become interesting, very interesting.

What the figures below show is that the closer you got to the top of the ladder in the era from 1950 to 1980, the smaller your relative increase in income, except for the very top, whose gains were slightly more than those of the bottom 90 percent. Since 1980, however, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen their incomes go nowhere, while on the highest steps of the income ladder, the further up you are, the greater your gains.

http://tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-8AGMUZ?OpenDocument

More info, graphs, and opining on the current state of things at the link. Just more evidence to throw on the pile that policies that promote such income disparities twirl everyone except for the few floaters further and further down the crapper.

Edit: The initial numbers for the top income category were incorrect. Thanks Lanyap.

Two people were found to have filed multiple W-2 forms that made them into multibillionaires, an agency official said yesterday. Those reports threw statistical wage tables out of whack and, in figures released Oct. 15, made it appear that top U.S. earners had seen their pay quintuple in 2009 to an average of $519 million.

The agency yesterday released corrected tables that showed the average incomes of the top earners, in fact, declined 7.7 percent to $84 million each.

Still 3 times as many people and nearly twice the average amount since 1994.

 

[spidey07]

Duh. The real reason is this...The number of Americans making $50 million or more, the top income category in the data, fell from 131 in 2008 to 74 last year. But that’s only part of the story.

The folks who made the correct decisions stayed in the 74 and made more money as the ones who didn't make the correct decisions caused gains for the others.

And jealousy is an evil emotion, let go of it.

 

[halik]

Wow there's only 75 people making 50M plus?

Not too surprising though, essentially half of them bet long market and the other half bet short. The ones with the short position made a shitload of money.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Wow there's only 75 people making 50M plus?

Not too surprising though, essentially half of them bet long market and the other half bet short. The ones with the short position made a shitload of money.

That does seem low. I wonder how many people they employ to make that kind of money.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

That does seem low. I wonder how many people they employ to make that kind of money.

Probably the bottom 19 million people that make 1/19 millionth that they do. Gotta exploit a whole lot of people to scam that kind of money.

 

[BoberFett]

So 74 people made an average $515.8M last year. That's about $38B in total. You're right, that is a lot of money.

Let's look at it in other ways to put it into perspective.

Last year, the estimated US GDP was $14.2T. That's $14,200B. $38B is 0.2% of that.

Let's now take that money and assume that we can eliminate those people who earned it without affecting the economy negatively. It's a stretch, but just for the sake of argument let's say that those people contribute absolutely nothing, and just leech off the rest of us. If we distribute that money evenly to everybody in the US, that $38B split between 300M people will give everyone roughly $126 extra. An average family of four would have had an extra $500 in 2009. Of course, that's assuming that it was split evenly, and not distributed proportionately so that's absolute best case scenario. In reality a middle class family of four might have gotten an extra $250 last year if we simply executed these "evil capitalists" for their greedy ways. Does an extra $20/mo really change their lives?

So yes, those 74 people made a lot of money however this is just fear mongering. The Republicans love to use the Muslim bogeymen, and Democrats have their wealthy bogeymen. Yes, they're both real, but their significance is overplayed.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Probably the bottom 19 million people that make 1/19 millionth that they do. Gotta exploit a whole lot of people to scam that kind of money.

Lol...you're too funny! Best laugh of the day! Thanks!

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Lol...you're too funny! Best laugh of the day! Thanks!

Yeah, I realized after I posted that I was assuming they were employing Americans. Got a good chuckle from that myself.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Yeah, I realized after I posted that I was assuming they were employing Americans. Got a good chuckle from that myself.

People in China gotta eat too you know! But...what the hell...let's just hang 'em and be done with it!

 

[werepossum]

So 74 people made an average $515.8M last year. That's about $38B in total. You're right, that is a lot of money.

Let's look at it in other ways to put it into perspective.

Last year, the estimated US GDP was $14.2T. That's $14,200B. $38B is 0.2% of that.

Let's now take that money and assume that we can eliminate those people who earned it without affecting the economy negatively. It's a stretch, but just for the sake of argument let's say that those people contribute absolutely nothing, and just leech off the rest of us. If we distribute that money evenly to everybody in the US, that $38B split between 300M people will give everyone roughly $126 extra. An average family of four would have had an extra $500 in 2009. Of course, that's assuming that it was split evenly, and not distributed proportionately so that's absolute best case scenario. In reality a middle class family of four might have gotten an extra $250 last year if we simply executed these "evil capitalists" for their greedy ways. Does an extra $20/mo really change their lives?

So yes, those 74 people made a lot of money however this is just fear mongering. The Republicans love to use the Muslim bogeymen, and Democrats have their wealthy bogeymen. Yes, they're both real, but their significance is overplayed.

You totally discount the pleasure of breaking the most successful among us. That's worth far more than a measly hundred bucks to any good progressive.

BTW, awesome avatar and quote.

 

[JS80]

Wow there's only 75 people making 50M plus?

Not too surprising though, essentially half of them bet long market and the other half bet short. The ones with the short position made a shitload of money.

I think you mean only 75 people with realized capital gains >$50m.

 

[SamurAchzar]

So when shareholders like Buffet do this kind of money it's OK, and when it's CEOs it's not?

 

[halik]

I think you mean only 75 people with realized capital gains >$50m.

Ha yeah,
if they went by AGI, they caught 75 guys with really bad tax attys

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

So when shareholders like Buffet do this kind of money it's OK, and when it's CEOs it's not?

No, my own contention it's not OK that the super wealthy just keep getting inordinately wealthier while the other 90% has increased their income 1% over the last 30 years, poverty is at a 15 year high, and unemployment is stuck at about 10%. With disparities that large either game is flat broken, the winning players are crooked, or a it's combination of the two.

 

[Pens1566]

So the 74 in '09 that made more than 50 mil totaled more than the 131 that reached that same level in '08 while the rest of us see wages declining. Yeah, nothing to worry about there

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Plus the current number is still 3 times as many people and over a ten fold dollar increase since 1994 when the breakpoint was $30 million lower.

 

[JS80]

No, my own contention it's not OK that the super wealthy just keep getting inordinately wealthier while the other 90% has increased their income 1% over the last 30 years, poverty is at a 15 year high, and unemployment is stuck at about 10%. With disparities that large either game is flat broken, the winning players are crooked, or a it's combination of the two.

Then why don't you become wealthy yourself? Most of those guys are self made.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Then why don't you become wealthy yourself? Most of those guys are self made.

Who says I'm not? I suppose my lack of a "I have mine, fuck everyone else" attitude might lead you to believe otherwise. Do most folks really just stop giving a shit about other people when they're wealthy? I mean, it's pretty apparent most here on this board do, but I hope (Lord everyday do I hope) that folks here aren't representative of the general populace.

 

[theeedude]

I don't have a problem with it if top bracket taxes are made high enough.

 

[SamurAchzar]

No, my own contention it's not OK that the super wealthy just keep getting inordinately wealthier while the other 90% has increased their income 1% over the last 30 years, poverty is at a 15 year high, and unemployment is stuck at about 10%. With disparities that large either game is flat broken, the winning players are crooked, or a it's combination of the two.

Yes but you're picking on the CEOs. It's very easy to pick on the employees when they collect the change, and the big money goes to the shareholders.

Lets see you picking on the investors who, to your assertion, have too much property without sounding like a commie.

 

[matt0611]

Who cares? Good for them I guess? Wish I made that much...

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Yes but you're picking on the CEOs. It's very easy to pick on the employees when they collect the change, and the big money goes to the shareholders.

Lets see you picking on the investors who, to your assertion, have too much property without sounding like a commie.

I nor the article is making a distinction between CEO's and anyone else. And shareholders don't normally get much money directly from the companies they have holdings in unless they are also employees.

 

[JS80]

Who says I'm not? I suppose my lack of a "I have mine, fuck everyone else" attitude might lead you to believe otherwise. Do most folks really just stop giving a shit about other people when they're wealthy? I mean, it's pretty apparent most here on this board do, but I hope (Lord everyday do I hope) that folks here aren't representative of the general populace.

Yea, instead you have a "you can't have mine, have theirs" attitude.

Aside from the 0.1% that win the genetics lottery, people as a whole choose their own destiny.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

No, my own contention it's not OK that the super wealthy just keep getting inordinately wealthier while the other 90% has increased their income 1% over the last 30 years, poverty is at a 15 year high, and unemployment is stuck at about 10%. With disparities that large either game is flat broken, the winning players are crooked, or a it's combination of the two.

You want to blame the super rich for this, but it's not the guys at the very top that are causing the discrepencies. It's the guys in the middle trying to reach the top that are the ones screwing the people over at the bottom.

 

[nonlnear]

So the 74 big time ballers who make enough to own both parties stayed in the country, and the other medium sized fish (who had been dragging the average down) and could only afford a GOP politician left the country for tax havens. Sound about right?