Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

This might be true for many, and it certainly looks that way if you look at averages. If you parse the data, you have something that looks like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._1947-2007.svg

You will notice that those in the bottom 20th percentile has seen barely an increase in overall income since the '70s. Those in the 40th percentile have seen a modest increase. Those in the 60th are doing pretty well. However, if you're in the 80th and especially the 95th percentile, you've clearly seen the most growth.

So I guess you could say an overall increase has happened. However, the bottom 20th looks dangerously like a flat line. I wonder what the numbers look like since 2008.

Originally Posted by Derwood

01 ) 83% of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1% of the people.
02 ) 61% of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49% in 2008 and 43% in 2007.
03 ) 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
04 ) 36% of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
05 ) A staggering 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
06 ) 24% of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
07 ) Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32% increase over 2008.
08 ) Only the top 5% of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
09 ) For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
10 ) In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to 1.
11 ) As of 2007, the bottom 80% of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
12 ) The bottom 50% of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth.
13 ) Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17% when compared with 2008.
14 ) In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
15 ) The top 1% of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
16 ) In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
17 ) More than 40% of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
18 ) For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
19 ) This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
20 ) Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16% to 7.8 million in 2009.
21 ) Approximately 21% of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
22 ) The top 10% of Americans now earn around 50% of our national income.