Economic Glance
The income gap between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America widened to a record last year, new analysis has found.
The top 1 percent of U.S. earners collected 19.3 percent of household income in 2012, their largest share in Internal Revenue Service figures going back a century.
U.S. income inequality has been growing for almost three decades. But until last year, the top 1 percent's share of pre-tax income had not yet surpassed the 18.7 percent it reached in 1927, according to an analysis of IRS figures dating to 1913 by economists at the University of California, Berkeley, the Paris School of Economics and Oxford University.
Richest 1 percent to own more than rest combined: report
More Than Half Of American Schoolchildren Now Live In Poverty
For the first time, more than half of U.S. public school students live in low-income households, according to a new analysis from the Southern Education Foundation.
Overall, 51 percent of U.S. schoolchildren came from low-income households in 2013, according to the foundation, which analyzed data from National Center for Education Statistics on students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Eligibility for free or subsidized lunch for students from low-income households serves as a proxy for gauging poverty, says the foundation, which advocates education equity for students in the South.
Food stamp benefit cut may force a million people into 'serious hardship'
Food stamp eligibility rules are tightening in states across the country, causing up to one million current recipients to lose benefits and resulting in “serious hardship for many,” a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CPBB) suggests.
The swipe on benefits will occur as various states re-impose work requirements they had let lapse in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Able-bodied adults without dependents (referred to as ABAWDs in U.S. Department of Agriculture jargon) are typically only able to access year-round food stamp if they are either working for at least 20 hours per week or participating in a federally approved workfare program. However, states with elevated unemployment levels have the ability to apply for a waiver on these rules.
How the states are redistributing wealth from middle class to 1%
In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama was lambasted for supposedly endorsing policies of wealth redistribution. The right feared that under an Obama presidency, Washington would use federal power to take money from some Americans and give it to others. Yet, only a few years later, the most explicit examples of such redistribution are happening in the states, and often at the urging of Republicans.
The most illustrative example began in 2012, when Kansas’ Republican Gov. Sam Brownback signed a landmark bill that delivered big tax cuts to high-income earners and businesses. Less than two years after that tax cut, the state’s income tax revenue plummeted by a quarter-billion dollars — and now Brownback is pushing to use money for public employees’ pensions to instead cover the state's ensuing budget shortfalls.
MF Global ordered to pay $1.2 billion restitution, $100 million penalty
A federal court in New York has ordered MF Global Holdings Ltd to pay $1.2 billion in restitution and a $100 million penalty over charges it misused customers funds and committed related supervisory violations, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Wednesday.
The CFTC said its litigation will continue against former MF Global Chief Executive Jon Corzine and former Assistant Treasurer Edith O'Brien.
U.S. economy grows at fastest pace in 11 years
The U.S. economy grew at its quickest pace in 11 years in the third quarter, the strongest sign yet that growth has decisively shifted into higher gear.
The Commerce Department on Tuesday revised up its estimate of gross domestic product growth to a 5.0 percent annual pace, citing stronger consumer and business spending than it had previously assumed.
Inequality Between America's Rich and Poor Is at a 30-Year High
There are many ways to compare finances, but perhaps a more holistic measure of financial health looks at household wealth, a comparison of what a family’s assets (home, cars, investments and bank accounts) are worth, versus what they owe. And when it comes to wealth, or net worth, the gap between the richest Americans and everyone else is at an historic high.
For the most part, it’s not necessarily that the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. Instead, the data shows that while the rich are seeing their assets grow and increase in value, the middle and lower-classes are seeing financial stagnation, creating a growing economic gulf.
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