Income inequality has snowballed. Adjusted for inflation, middle-class wages have been nearly frozen for the last four decades, and discretionary income has declined if escalating out-of-pocket health care costs and insurance premiums are counted. Yet earnings by the top one percent have nearly tripled.
Steven Brill • Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall--and Those Fighting to Reverse It
8. The Big Stretch. Rising incomes among a small group of Americans led to that group breaking away in lifestyle. They bought bigger homes, nicer cars, went to expensive schools, and took fancy vacations.
Nick Wignall • Outline.com
- Gains are shared more equally than ever before.
Morgan Housel • The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness
And in America, no matter how much you’ve got, someone next to you has more. This is what Chris Hayes once described to me as “fractal inequality.” America’s top 10 percent are far, far better off than the other 90 percent, but the top 1 percent is far, far better off than the 10 percent, and the 0.01 percent is far, far better off than the 1 perce... See more
David Roberts • The medium chill
Even high-income earners don’t handle their money well: 34 percent of those who earned $250,000 or more said the need to pay everyday bills was the top reason why they weren’t saving more. One in ten said they weren’t making enough to make ends meet, according to an HSBC Bank report in 2007.
Ramit Sethi • I Will Teach You to Be Rich
89% of private industry workers in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ highest wage category had access to retirement benefits, compared to 32% of workers in the lowest wage category.
Sarah Kessler • Gigged: The Gig Economy, the End of the Job and the Future of Work
Per capita income in the United States is higher than per capita income in France; the United States also has a higher proportion of children living in poverty.
Charles Wheelan • Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Fully Revised and Updated)
Today, the financial precarity associated with creative professions means that those who pursue art are typically well off: someone whose family has an income of $100,000 is twice as likely to become an artist, actor, musician, or author than someone from a family with $50,000 income. And those from households with an annual income of $1 million ar... See more