According to a recent study, the top 10% of earners take home over half the total income earned in the United States. The top 1% rake in over 1/5th of the income generated by all Americans. These numbers are at one of the highest levels measured since the income tax was instituted in 1913 — and are eerily reminiscent of those seen during the Gilded Age, just before the 1929 stock market collapse.
While the top 1% have seen their income quadruple since 1979, incomes for the rest of us have stagnated. The recent headline-making Oxfam study showed that the top 85 most wealthy people on the planet control as much wealth as the bottom 3.5 billion. Economic mobility (the idea that those born poor have the opportunity to change their economic condition) is tougher in the U.S. than in other wealthy nations such as Canada or Denmark.
Washington state certainly isn’t exempt from this economic inequality. This chart from the Congressional Budget Office shows just how unequal the income growth in our state has been over the last 30 years.
How do we address this inequality? That is one of the questions the current Legislature is considering right now.