NEW YORK, Oct. 12, 2007

Income Inequality Hits Post-WWII Record

The Skinny: Richest 1 Percent Of Americans Taking Home Almost A Quarter Of The Pie

  • Income inequality has gotten so severe, even President Bush is blushing.

    Income inequality has gotten so severe, even President Bush is blushing.  (CBS)

  • Interactive Eye On The Economy

    In-depth features on U.S. markets, taxes, employment and the Federal Reserve.

(CBS)  The Skinny is Keach Hagey's take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.



You know America's embarrassingly little income inequality problem has gotten bad when even President Bush is blushing.

New IRS figures out today reveal that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americas earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, the Wall Street Journal reports. That's up sharply from 19 percent in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8 percent in 2000, at the beak of the previous bull market in stocks.

The IRS only started keeping these kinds of figures, which include capital gains, in 1986, so there's some guessing involved. But academics say the rich haven't gotten such a big slice of the pie since the Roaring '20s.

Meanwhile, the median tax filer's income fell 2 percent between 2000 and 2005, to $30,881. Median, of course, means half of Americans earn less than that.

In an exclusive interview, the paper grilled the President over these numbers.

"Do I think some of the salaries are excessive at the top? I do," Bush said. "I don't think it's the role of the government to regulate salary. But I do believe it's a role of boards of directors to be very transparent with shareholders about these different packages, the employment packages that these executives get."

Excessive executive compensation "just sends a signal of unfairness, and the people in America want ... fairness," Bush told the Journal.

Yes, ideally, fairness. But in the meantime, one suspects a lot of Americans would settle for health insurance.

Kicked Off Welfare, Japanese Man Dies For Want Of A Rice Ball

America has income inequality issues, yes, but today's most galling story of wealth disparity is set in Japan.

The New York Times reports on the sad tale of a 52-year-old Japanese welfare recipient whose partly mummified corpse was discovered alongside a thin notebook detailing his last days.

His last entry: "My belly's empty. I want to eat a rice ball. I haven't eaten rice in 25 days."

A rice ball costs about $1. The man starved to death because he had been kicked off the welfare rolls by the city of Kitakyushu, which had held up its handling of his case as a "model." Several other destitute men have starved to death in similar circumstances in other Japanese cities in the past few years, but it took the diary to draw attention.

Japan has traditionally been hard on welfare recipients, and with no religious tradition of charity, it has few soup kitchens or places for the indigent. Welfare applicants are expected to turn to their relatives or use up their savings before getting benefits. Welfare is considered less of an entitlement than a shameful handout. And the pressure on cities to keep their welfare rate flat is intense.

"Local governments tend to believe that using taxpayer money to help people in need is doing a disservice to citizens," said Hiroshi Sugimura, a professor specializing in welfare at Hosei University in Tokyo. "To them, those in need are not citizens. Only those who pay taxes are citizens."

Generation Q (For Quiet) Shouts Back

On Wednesday, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman offered his assessment on what's wrong with kids these days. They're too quiet, man! They'd rather launch a Facebook page for their favorite cause than get out in the streets and raise a ruckus. And so he dubbed them Generation Q.

Today, some of those 20-somethings respond on the Times letters page. Taken together, the letters presented a portrait of today's young people as very, very self aware -- and more than a little square. Maybe that's true; maybe it's the interpretation of the letter page's editor. In any case, here are some highlights:

"Today's college students may not be as outwardly radical as their 1960s counterparts, but their passion to change 'the system' is still alive," writes Shannon Cox Baker, a sustainable-building consultant from Boulder, Colo. "Protests, sit-ins and boycotts brought much-needed attention to the hot-button issues of the 60s and 70s, but these measures fell short of achieving their intended goal: change."

"Students have learned from these shortcomings and recognize that paradigm-shifting change does not result from outside pressure. It must be pragmatic and must come from within."

"That is why students today who desire to make a difference in the world are pursuing engineering, law and business instead of -- or in addition to -- philosophy, religion and political science."

Ouch! Hitting a columnist right where it hurts -- in the liberal arts.

Will Bates, a 20-something from Manchester, N.H., responded to Friedman's complaint of youth's over-reliance on the Internet by dropping some websites. But wait, he pleads, before dismissing this generation as "too online," please check them out. So here they are: StepItUp2007.org and 1skycampaign.org.

"More than anything, we want our movement to take on global warming -- to express our outrage and also hope that we can do better," Bates writes. "We're not blogging and harnessing the power of online networks; we're trying to inspire on-the-ground political engagement."

That's fine for issues like global warming, on which there's a rapidly developing consensus (see Al Gore's Nobel Prize). But what about more controversial ones, like, say, the one implied by the lead item of this column?

Melissa Sullivan of Boston hints at the Internet's perils for those who take these kinds of issues.

"As a 20-something, I'd like to express this unfortunate truth with which I live: in a world built to make sure I succeed to the best of my ability, I am also warned to be cautious."

"Don't show your affiliations, we are urged, lest your ideology keep you from that school or job that would be the best for you and your future. So purge your essay, resume and Facebook page of any connection that might be unpalatable to potential employers and sacrifice part of your identity to the murky "what ifs" of the future."

"Maybe, in the worship of caution, we've lost our connection to those passion-inspiring causes and have become the quite, inoffensive and ultimately employable Americans."

A NOTE TO READERS: The Skinny is available via e-mail. Click here and follow the directions to register to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.

©MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Add a Comment See all 46 Comments
by archangelric October 13, 2007 9:32 PM EDT
drivelphobe: are you really that clueless? have you no sense?

People;

surely the same forces that keep worker salaries low would keep executive salaries low! Duh!

clearly, what you were taught in economics was worthless; it does not apply in the real world.

in the real world, executives get to set their own salaries (or choose the consultants who do so). in a 1989 study published by the philadelphia inquirer and widely distributed; executives of large coporations in japan and europe averaged 17 times their base workers salaries but the US average was 2014 times base workers salaries.

The US workers are getting less and sharing a smaller piece of the pie, and executives are getting more - a bigger piece of the pie.

Wake up, people. this is NOT free enterprise; this is PRIVATE enterprise. And it is very very bad for the 90+ % of us who actually work.
Reply to this comment
by brianbwb-2009 October 13, 2007 3:56 PM EDT
When Bush got elected in 2000, I said he''''d try to take Americ back to the beginning of the 20th century economically. He has succeeded in this if nothing else......
Posted by formrusmcsgt

Actually Prostident Reagan was the first to expose the true agenda of the elitists, with his "trickle down" BS, which started the US war on the poverty stricken and the decimation of the middle class.
Reply to this comment
by drivelphobe October 13, 2007 2:47 PM EDT
Is this bad, unexpected news? Of course the wealthier individuals become more wealthy. They are invested,living within their means. With 20 million illegals added to the stats, what can you expect. Don''t forget the millions of scumbags that don''t report what they earn, working for cash! Our system works fine and those that try to stir up sympathy for the "poor" have a ploitical agenda.

Millions of people are on the road to financial independence via hard work, saving, education, investment and prudence. These basic tenets seem unknown to the masses of over-breeding scavengers living on credit cards and hopping from one job to another, thinking the government or the taxpayer owes then a better pay check.

The more the wealthy earn, the more taxes they pay and the more jobs they can export. There are fewer good employees left in this country. Many only want jobs with big pay, short hours, freedom to get on the internet whenever they want, and lots of benefits.

When a business owner can find good employees, they will share in the wealth of the business. Too many employees won''t put in the time to learn and become valuable. They expect the owner to take better care of them. They seem shocked when someone from "outside" the business has to be hired for the higher paying job, not realizing they could have had it if they had only put in the effort to improve thmeselves.
Reply to this comment
by formrusmcsgt October 13, 2007 11:46 AM EDT
"The IRS only started keeping these kinds of figures, which include capital gains, in 1986, so there''s some guessing involved. But academics say the rich haven''t gotten such a big slice of the pie since the Roaring ''20s."

When Bush got elected in 2000, I said he''d try to take Americ back to the beginning of the 20th century economically. He has succeeded in this if nothing else......
Reply to this comment
by brianbwb-2009 October 13, 2007 8:31 AM EDT
We aren''''t communists so is this the normal consequence of a developed country in a democracy? Or, is this just the product of increasing technology leaving some workers behind?
Posted by donbl1

Neither, it is the result of corruption, protecting those who steal the most money.

When the people of a tiny country like Singapore live, on the average, far better than Americans, one can hardly call that developed.

The workers are being left behind because of outsourcing labor to slave wage countries like India, Indonesia, and China.
Reply to this comment
by ioweign October 13, 2007 2:55 AM EDT
Is it suprising? Everytime an issue the opposition is branded traitorous because it is a time of war. What is funny is this is an occupation not a war. What sacrifices have been made collectively to sustain this "War"? Are we selling war bonds? Are we tapping industries to eliminate war profiteering? Have the oil companies who are profitting beyond belief made any concession since it is they who ultimately benefit from this conflict? Is it suprising that these multinationals are not bargaining for America''''s good? Walmarts, Halliburton,Blackwater,GE, boeing, these are the real traitors. They make the militaryindustrialcomplex. and they are the patrons of this administration. the next time you shop at walmart remember the american job you just eliminated.

Posted by NVME3 at 11:16 AM : Oct 12, 2007

And where is the draft ??

Reply to this comment
by ioweign October 13, 2007 2:52 AM EDT
Using ibsteve2u''''s logic you can''''t blame bush for anything that has happened since the democrats gained control of congress. I love how it''''s always someone else''''s fault. I almost want a democrat president and congress so you''''ll wake up when you''''re paying more taxes that you''''ll never get back. Who will you blame then. You assume that bush has all the power in the world, but clinton had none?

Posted by bthrasher102 at 04:30 PM : Oct 12, 2007

The National Debt Ceiling has been raise 5 times under Bush.

The National Debt was $5.6 trillion when Bush started - it is now $9.1 trillion.

How much is Iraq costing and how are you going to pay for the Bush/Cheney war ?

The next president is going to have to clean up after Bush and that will probably mean an increase in taxes to pay for the mess we see now !

Reply to this comment
by sparks224 October 13, 2007 12:57 AM EDT
Income Inequality Hits Post-WWII Record

The really sad part is this is what all those working class Republicans have been voting for all along and they didn''t even know it.
Reply to this comment
by sparks224 October 13, 2007 12:53 AM EDT
Income Inequality Hits Post-WWII Record

FDR has finally been defeated.
Hooray for the Reagan revolution!
Reply to this comment
by fairandbal October 13, 2007 12:09 AM EDT
This is the world King George (Bush) II was born into... The wealthy have no idea what the rest of the 90% of the country is like... and keeps saying, the ECONOMY IS GREAT, DON''T WORRY, BE HAPPY!
Well, King George, the emperor has no clothes, and supply side economics and tax breaks for the super wealthy are not helping America! time for new leadership!
Reply to this comment
by whispyseas October 12, 2007 10:10 PM EDT
'' ... if the four year olds are getting tortured, then slam the ten year olds in detention ... that will sure teach them how to rule well or else ... and to think such messages originate with those what care enough to call the d.a.r.eing a school house war ... ''

'' ... infinite divergence said eternity, it''s like if i cut you with my knife, then i''ve not cut you i''ve cut myself, if you cut me with a knife, then you''ve not cut me, i''ve cut myself ... i have a few faces to choose from, a face where i cut you, a face where you cut me, a face where we are apart, and a face where we make babies together, and you have as many faces, and we each make a selection of the path to choose, we each walk each path and each choose to view any one or more of the paths at any time and in any order that we choose, and whichever path or paths we choose to observe together at anytime, that is where are this part of you and i, here and now ... ''
Reply to this comment
by whispyseas October 12, 2007 9:54 PM EDT
'' ... average 90,000 countys of 90,000 folk, 300 villages of 300 folk each county, 36 villages and 36 sick beds each night, as each village of 300 requires 10,800 medical you are here map song dance skit kit $1 tip-swapping vistors each night to earn minum wage, $12,000 year income affords $60,000 340 square foot home on 2500 square foot lot ... ''

'' ... most folk most time dance get well soon feed the world songs rallyed round hundreds millions sick beds drifting tens millions spore bloom weed dragon trail fickle first aid lunch farm cottage studio trail crossing yseedsberry trail groups ... though most, they say dance 20 minutes each day of porno get sick tax world songs as well ... ''
''


'' ... 300 folk in 300 weeks can assemble 90,000 little museums of medical you are here map song dance skit kit ... ''

Reply to this comment
by whispyseas October 12, 2007 9:42 PM EDT
'' ... a naked girl walked in and said i''ve here a tiny acorn i''ll make shine like the sun, and folk doubted, and the girl scratched her head and said e=mc2, and everyone dropped their jaws and shook their heads and said, you really can make that shine like the sun ... and magic happened ... and once, another girl said, i can sail a straight line to here without falling off the globe for the world is round, and she made folk believe, and folk believed, and magic happened ... then a congress said, give us trillions of dollars of weapons and we swear no one will get mugged or raped or killed, and they made folk believe and folk believed, and magic happened ... ''

'' ... little naked girls know well, if one puts a naked girl on a news desk dancing get well feed world songs rallied around the sick beds, then the world will fill with naked girls on news desks everywhere, which is why little naked girls don''t get on news desks, to give little dressed armed boys a chance ... ''

'' ... the coach entered the locker room screaming and hollering about the *** he caught on his team, and the girls all laughed ''coach coach coach, where have you been'', and a little naked boy walked in and said, ''let''s play ball y''all ... ''

'' ... the silly parrot tripped me, somebody get it ... ''

'' ... 36 sick beds each day, 7 days each week, for 36 dollars each day ... ''
Reply to this comment
by donbl1 October 12, 2007 8:41 PM EDT
Good graph in today''s WSJ displaying the income inequality growth rate over the last 50 years. Steadily UP - except during recessions.

The Clinton inequality years were a ramp because of the dot com stock market and the inequality fell off dramatically at the 2001 recession and has only now reached the Clinton induced inequality.

The increasing income inequality has been going on for a long time through Democratic and Replublican Presidents and Congresses.

We aren''t communists so is this the normal consequence of a developed country in a democracy? Or, is this just the product of increasing technology leaving some workers behind?
Reply to this comment
by bthrasher102 October 12, 2007 7:30 PM EDT
Using ibsteve2u''s logic you can''t blame bush for anything that has happened since the democrats gained control of congress. I love how it''s always someone else''s fault. I almost want a democrat president and congress so you''ll wake up when you''re paying more taxes that you''ll never get back. Who will you blame then. You assume that bush has all the power in the world, but clinton had none?
Reply to this comment
by missingamerica October 12, 2007 7:19 PM EDT
Comparisons to what? This gap has been increasing for a long time. I hate to break this to you, but democrats ran the country during some of this time period. Blaming a sitting president for something that has been getting worse for a half century is stupid and you know it.

Posted by bthrasher102 at 04:04 PM : Oct 12, 2007

You use interesting numbers, like stating that it started "a half century ago". Go to:

http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm

You will see that Reagan started it, and it understandably accelerated under Clinton (it was impossible to fight the lobbyist money behind "no new taxes", and once you get a big chunk of money it enables you to go out and get more chunks), and is accelerating even faster thanks to the Bush tax cuts.

All because of that irrational "trickle down" idea.

I mean, c''mon - when one rich person garners the income of 1000 workers, is he or she going to put that money back into circulation by buying 1000 washers or dryers, 1000 cars, 4000 bags of groceries a week, and on and on and on?

"Trickle down economics" is merely greed hidden behind gobbledigook.
Reply to this comment
by bthrasher102 October 12, 2007 7:04 PM EDT
Comparisons to what? This gap has been increasing for a long time. I hate to break this to you, but democrats ran the country during some of this time period. Blaming a sitting president for something that has been getting worse for a half century is stupid and you know it.
Reply to this comment
by missingamerica October 12, 2007 7:03 PM EDT
No surprise.

Those people at the receiving end of the inequality curve, in combination with those people who are benefiting from the 10-year chart of XOI, are the very same people that got Bush elected.

Before you say it, yes they also had to dupe the Christian coalition et al among the conservatives in order to reach today''s (Reagan started it) rate of wealth consolidation.

Which even they are beginning to recognize, now.
Reply to this comment
by starleo146 October 12, 2007 6:39 PM EDT
You know Mc Vet can stick up for him/her self better than I can do it. She/He is angry with all that is allowed to go on. No one seems to care and in her/his own way she/he is trying to open your eyes. If it takes strong words, whatever just keep the word going. I understand her/him and agree 100%. So shut up and listen, you will finally see the comparisons.
Reply to this comment
by starleo146 October 12, 2007 6:34 PM EDT
Income inequality is at post WWII levels? What do you expect when the repukes have been running the show for so long. They look out for their base: "The haves and have-mores" to quote the chimp-in-chief, and the rest of us can eat dog food.

Posted by motherjones at 12:09 PM : Oct 12, 2007

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT IT HAS TO BE SAID OVER AND OVER.So many have suffered under this Pres. and it is time for a new day, a new dawn, no one stays down forever.
Reply to this comment
See all 46 Comments

Exclusive Webshow

Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective. Watch Now

Latest News
News in Pictures
Scroll Left Scroll Right
  • The Fall Of The Berlin Wall The Fall Of The Berlin Wall

    Looking Back at the Wall that Once Divided Germany On the 20th Anniversary of Its Collapse

  • Patricia Clarkson Patricia Clarkson

    Television and Film Actress, Yale School of Drama Graduate and Academy Award Nominee

  • Day in Pictures Day in Pictures

    A Glimpse at the Day's News as Seen Through a Camera Lens

  • Andre Agassi Andre Agassi

    Former Top-Seeded Tennis Star, Gossip Column Favorite and Philanthropist

  • Yankees Victory Parade Yankees Victory Parade

    The Yankees Celebrate Their 27th World Series Championship with a Ticker-Tape Parade Up Broadway

  • Orlando Office Shooting Orlando Office Shooting

    A Gunman Opens Fire at the Offices of an Engineering Firm Where He Once Worked

Connect with CBS News

Stay connected with the CBS News using your favorite social networks and online news applications: