Income Inequality at Record Levels

No wonder Bill de Blasio’s campaign against income inequality hit home. The top 10 percent of earners took more than half the country’s income last year, the highest level ever recorded, according to a study by economists at the University of California, Berkeley. The top 1 percent took home more than a fifth of the country’s income, one of the highest levels since 1913, when the U.S. instituted an income tax. The study found that the recovery from the recession has disproportionately benefited the wealthy, with stocks and real estate prices booming while lower wages stagnated and unemployment remained high.