Socio-economic Inequality

This is from the September 2009 issue of The Progressive Magazine, an article called "Wall Street's Gall, by Les Leopold:

• In 1970, the ratio of the top100 corporate CEOs and the average worker's pay was 40 to 1. By 2007 it was 1,723 to 1.

• In 1970, the top 1 percent received 8 percent of the national income. By 2007, it was gobbling up 23 percent of the national income.

• In 2006, the top one-tenth of 1 percent of tax payers (about 140,000 tax returns) reported as much income as the bottom 50 percent (67.4 million tax returns). The last time we suffered from such an extreme income distribution? 1928-29.

...

simply, yet absolutely, astounding - mind boggling