The US Upper Crust Rebounds

Not much can be added to tag along with this chart that shows so dramatically who the winners and losers have been in the recovery to date. The chart is an analysis of recent IRS data by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty illustrates directions in US incomes after the Great Recession and the Great Depression. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and tax code expert David Clay Johnson suggests this shows plenty about our tax and economic policy direction.

The 1934 economic rebound was widely shared, with strong income gains for the vast majority, the bottom 90 percent.In 2010, we saw the opposite as the vast majority lost ground.
National income gained overall in 2010, but all of the gains were among the top 10 percent.

Even within those 15.6 million households, the gains were extraordinarily concentrated among the super-rich, the top one percent of the top one percent.
Just 15,600 super-rich households pocketed an astonishing 37 percent of the entire national gain.
The different results in 1934 and 2010 show how a major shift in federal policy hurts the vast majority and benefits the super-rich.