America's growing economic divide - resources for Journalists, Teachers, Policymakers, Citizens

By the Numbers

The latest and fullest data on income, wealth, CEO pay, etc. Compiled by Chris Hartman.

In the News

"Many social scientists believe this sudden rebirth of economic inequality is the biggest news of the last half-century," says Robert Putnam. [More]

"I want to give away my money rather than have somebody take it away," says retired Citigroup CEO Sanford Weil. [More]

Four big Washington think tanks have been studying upward mobility in today's America. They haven't found too much of it, among males especially. [More]

Pressroom

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Recent articles by Inequality.org editors/contributors:

The Specter Haunting Your Office (James Lardner, New York Review of Books, June 14, 2007). A look at the role of rootless corporations and financial manipulators in the rise of a "new 'money power' more daunting, in some ways, than that of the late 1800s and early 1900s. To gain their political ends, the robber barons and monopolists of the Gilded Age were content with corrupting officials and buying elections. Their modern counterparts have taken things a big step further, erecting a loose network of think tanks, corporate spokespeople, and friendly press commentators to shape the way Americans think about the economy."

Let's rein in CEO salaries (Chuck Collins, Wichita Eagle, 4/17/07). "When it comes to the exorbitant pay of America's corporate chief executive officers, everyone likes to quote late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who said 'sunshine is the best disinfectant.' But if you still have an infection after sitting in the sun for 15 years, maybe it's time for some stronger medicine.

Ten Blockbuster Hearings Congress Should Do (Chuck Collins, The Nation, 1/22/07). How can progressives best grab the momentum from the November elections to promote bold initiatives to end illegal war, fight poverty and inequality, and rein in the corporations that are destroying our democracy?

We Still Need the Estate Tax (Bill Gates Sr. and Chuck Collins, Miami Herald, 12/26/06). In December 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt expressed alarm about the dangerous concentration of wealth and power in the United States and called on the incoming 60th Congress to pass a federal estate tax. Its primary objective, intoned T.R., ``should be to put a constantly increasing burden on the inheritance of those swollen fortunes, which it is certainly of no benefit to this country to perpetuate.''

A century later, after a 10-year assault, the federal estate tax is here to stay. While the votes no longer exist for permanent repeal, action is still needed. Otherwise, the tax will vanish in 2010 and return in 2011, creating a one-year window for tax-free dying. Congress must act to discourage a year of mysterious accidents in affluent households, bring back predictability and prevent further deterioration of the nation's fiscal situation.

Populism's Revival (James Lardner, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/22/06). "If cheap imports (or, for that matter, low-wage immigrants) could explain a long, sharp increase in inequality, France, the Netherlands and much of Europe would be going through the same experience; they're not. If skill was the crucial factor, the long-term winners would be the top 20 or 30 percent of Americans. Instead, they've been the top 5, 2, or 1 percent -- the 1 percent who now pocket almost a fifth of all personal income, roughly twice what their share was during the 1960s and '70s."