The Rich Just Keep Pulling Away From the Rest of Us


Via Matt Yglesias, I see that Emmanuel Saez released some new income inequality figures a few days ago, and the headline result is predictable: the super rich are doing really well! Since 2009, incomes of the top 1% have grown by 31 percent, while the incomes of the other 99% have been flat.

Now, I imagine that apologists for the rich are going to point out that their recent winnings still don’t make up for their losses during the Great Recession. And that’s true. As the annotated chart on the right shows, since the 2007 peak the rich have suffered an average income loss of 16.3 percent. The rest of us have done better: our incomes are down only 11.2 percent.

But this is meaningless. For starters, an 11.2 percent drop for someone making 15 bucks an hour is a helluva lot more painful than a 16.3 percent drop for a millionaire.

More importantly, economic expansions are always where the action is for the rich. When you combine their gains from expansions with their losses from the subsequent recessions, they always do better than the non-rich. They did 25 percentage points better during the Clinton era and 9 points better during the Bush era. When the next recession hits, their net gains will, once again, almost certainly be higher than the rest of us. If you look at complete economic cycles—as you should—the rich have pulled ahead in every single one since 1980. Right now, there’s no reason to think that the next time will be any different.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate