Today the rich are richer than any time since 1928

[travric]

In the United States, they are not. Since the end of WW2 the average income by quintile for the entire US population has increased continually

And really today if you're one of those who come from a family in those 'bottom' quintiles it's going to get tough to say 'jump the rung' up into those higher income quints. Today, you're more likely to stay in it than get out of it now if you find yourself coming from the bottom quintiles. Essentially, I think that is a fundamental change in the American Dream that has long been a part of of 'making it' here in the United States of America. I'm not sure if it was a rule many years ago to jump quintiles but arguably today it can be an exception if you don't win Lotto.

[NJGOAT]

Originally Posted by travric

And really today if you're one of those who come from a family in those 'bottom' quintiles it's going to get tough to say 'jump the rung' up into those higher income quints. Today, you're more likely to stay in it than get out of it now if you find yourself coming from the bottom quintiles. Essentially, I think that is a fundamental change in the American Dream that has long been a part of of 'making it' here in the United States of America. I'm not sure if it was a rule many years ago to jump quintiles but arguably today it can be an exception if you don't win Lotto.

It is very hard to move compared to say 1945-1965. The post war period saw a narrowing of the wealth gap in the US and allowed for greater mobility. That single time period saw the largest upward movement between the quintiles. We have not retreated on those gains (the middle class is just as large and healthy as ever), but movement between them has certainly stagnated. When movement does exist it's usually between the middle three quintiles representing the overarch of the "upper", "middle" and "lower" middle class. What you tend to not see is movement from the lowest quintile into the reaches of the lower middle class.

It's hard to have these discussion absent the political rhetoric that doesn't really fit into the forum, so I am just trying to keep it factual. The rich are richer, everyone else is a little bit better off than they were and the poor are still pretty much locked into a cycle of systemic poverty. The middle class, despite many "naysayers" is actually pretty healthy. The "middle class is shrinking" claims are often tied to a specific earnings subset. The reason it is shrinking is because people are moving up and out of that subset. Of course no one is moving in to replace them. The size of the overall middle class is staying the same, but the gap between middle class and poor is also widening.

[Futurist110]

Originally Posted by Mark S.

Anyone remember what happened in 1929?

Sure I do, but you appear to be implying here that correlation equals causation, which is not necessarily the case.

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by tinytrump

You know I listened to the 60 min on the 401 K fees and how people being nickled and dimed to death with out knowing it. The wealthy are seriously raping the everyday workers and screaming for all to focus on the poor. It is all their fault, while they have their hands in your pocket.. I personally do not think the wealth is in the USA anymore, I think the puppet masters are all over seas except for a handful . my take..
there was another documentary called Overdraft pretty good explanation

Bunk! To begin with, an ever-increasing proportion of the nation's wealth is in the hands of institutions -- everything from university and hospital endowments to the perpetual care funds of cemeteries. This wealth is managed by professionals, and if they ever decide that the most secure investments no longer lie within our borders, or that the American economy is too thoroughly corrupted by the sort of "thinking" that has already destroyed cities like Detroit and New Orleans, at that point we're all up a certain well-known creek.

But in practice, we're still a long way from that. We continue to dominate in certain basic industries -- aircraft is merely at the top of a long list. We have an agriculture so stable that it can produce surpluses and satisfy all the fads like veganism and gluten-phobia, and entire basic industries, such as steel, have reinvented themselves by chucking the labor-intensive and immovable geronto-technologies of fifty years ago. Our basic land transport network, both highway and rail, completely re-oriented itself and shed a large amount of both obsolete infrastructure and regulatory meddling in the period between 1955 and 1995.

If there is any single problem with the current American economic system, it is a culture which both seeks unattainable levels of security, and provokes class-consciousness and disillusionment via the folly called Political Correctness. And this cancer is most directly embodied in the NEA, AFSCME and others among the public employee unions.

One way or another, the excesses of the new, real, and far more threatening aristocracy of state-supported privelege is going to collapse under its own dead weight -- just as the limits of "permanent indolence" forced a Democratic President to agree to end "welfare as we knew it" twenty years ago.

You losers and whiners can continue to line up for "pseudo-welfare" at Wal-Mart and Mickey D's.

[Electrician4you]

Originally Posted by Fortoggie

For the first time in history, we have a tool, rather than guns, to help even out the income disparity. It's called the internet and after 20 years we are just now seeing the beginnings of an uprising. Remember there are 99 of us to 1 of them and if we get our heads out of, you know where and our fingers off the smart phones at least the zillion meaningless texts and start really communicating to our peers, our political leaders and everybody else, this tool can be powerful.
The lower classes have no history doing this: now that they have the means; will they use it?

There too busy watching the Kardashians or some other " reality" Tv show. Most people don't even vote much less worry about the country