Explaining the Gap Separating the Rich from the Middle Class

Book Review
Winner-Take-All Politics
How Washington Made the Rich Richer--And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

Copyright 2010 by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson
Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, New York
ISBN 978-1-4165-8870-2

This book goes a long way in explaining what's happened to the middle class in the United States--and why.  I learned about "drift" in the Democratic Party and the role it plays.

Quote from page 292:  "Recall the startling facts revealed by the DNA evidence on American incomes: From 1979 until 2006, the top 1 percent received 36 percent of all the income growth generated in the American economy, while the highest-income 1/10th of 1 percent--one out of every 1,000 households--received nearly 20 percent, even after taking into account all federal taxes and all government and employer-provided benefits."

(The following link goes to the book at Amazon.)
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class

The Rich are Getting Richer -- An Astonishing Chart Shows How Much

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive research organization, has published an amazing chart showing how the inequality gap between average Americans and the extremely wealthy has grown.

The differences between 1946- to 1976 and for 1976-2007 are presented in graphical form so that most everyone should be able to easily understand the information presented.