High income workers' share of total wages grows

It's working. The #$%$ in Washington have turned us against each other. Just read these boards. Sad. Used to be The United States, now it's the divided.

Goldman Saks posted a loss in the last quarter but has earmarked 2.9 billion for pay and bonuses...I see the whole thing happening again...

I'm astonished to read that 50% of American workers earned less than $26,000 last year. Even though I assume that calculation is including part time workers dragging the result down, it is still a terribly low median average.

I'd take this out and show it to the 1%. But like Upton Sinclair said: "It's hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."

There's a simple remedy for the wealth gap. Just link Congressional salaries to the Median Income and watch it soar.

Here is how it works. A CEO hires a cost cutting manager, the manager makes most of the employees of the company into partime employees so it doesn't have to give them healthcare and vacation. The company savestons of moneys. The CEO and the cost cutting manager get big raises and bonus while the other employees go to the dog house.

And people wonder why OWS is going on? I wish the media would find some relate-able people there to cover, and not just the people with accents spouting gibberish in broken English.

Yeah, I have a degree and when I ask for $15.00 an hour they hire someone with less experience at $9.00 per hour who speaks some English!!!!

Its not that anyone wants to take what the rich have. Thye just want to stop the rich from being able to take more.
A company earns 68 billion in profits then lays off 1800 workers? That is not fair. Or a company earns 113 billion and continues daily in raising the prices of gasoline.
Top level executives lie, cheat, steal and make bad business decisions to cause the company they represent to go downhill and the US gov bails them out.
All anyone wants is a fair shake. Give me the same breaks and opportunities. Let me go spend all of my money in the stock market or squander it adn give me a do-over.
Stop allowing big business from making political contributions. Put America back into America's hands.

"From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated."

www_michaelmoore_com/words/mike-friends-blog/30-years-ago-today

Teach your reporters to use a dictionary. This article is about the "median" income at $26K. Median = half above, half below. "Mean" and "average" are used as synonyms. Another mistake in your article.

A median income of $26k is a national disgrace. and underscores just how out-of-touch Washington and Wall Street are ...Our leaders and media screamed about changing tax rates on incomes of over $250K , as if this would hurt the middle class. $250K is way upper class. $25k, one tenth of that, now we're talking middle class, as in 'median": half above, half below, i.e., in the middle.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011
1. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen.
Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

In 1950 the minimum wage was 75 cents per hour and the median household income of
$3,319 converted to hourly wage (40 hours per week X 52 weeks = 2,080 hours per year)
was $1.60. So, in 1950 the median household income was 2.13 times the minimum wage.
In 2010 the median household income of $50,000 converted to hourly wages = $24.04 per
hour. Applying the factor of 2.13 from 1950 the minimum wage today would be $11.30
($11.30 X 2.13 = $24.04) instead of $7.25. In addition to the decrease in the minimum wage in relation to median household income over the last 60 years expenses for housing/rent,
food, energy, education and healthcare have skyrocketed much faster than wage increases for the last several decades. All this has combined to steadily drive the living standards of the lower income quintiles down to where they are today with the government making up the difference with food stamps, welfare, Medicaid and other subsidies. The economy in large measure has deteriorated because there is so little consumer buying power available in the lower income quintiles to create excess demand which is the catalyst for an expanding economy and the continual creation of new jobs. The 1950s witnessed one of the greatest economic expansions in our nation's history. More money at the top is not the catalyst for job creation. Businesses will not create jobs unless there is excess demand no matter how much money the businesses have accumulated. To do so would be folly and poor business management on their part. No excess demand for goods and services results in no new jobs being created and more jobs being lost over time due to increases in productivity.

And yet they still keep taking more away from us and giving it to the rich!!!!! No more middle class, just rich and poor

ALL politicians should have term limits.. That goes for School Committee members up to the President. Give them all one six year term. All jobs should be at a civil servant pay grade. A top salary of $50,000 for all politicians. There should be no special healhcare... no lifetime pensions. When this country was designed, politicians were supposed to be civil servants. Many had 2nd jobs! For those who say that we wouldn't attract quality people, I disagree. Our founding fathers were quality people. Becoming a poltician today is a status job that pays VERY well. In many cases, it pays for a lifetime. Don't be fooled people.... The Democrats and the Republicans represent the rich. Not the rich that have one million in their 401k. But the rich that have billions.... wake up America! It is time to change the way this country is run!

Its not that anyone wants to take what the rich have. Thye just want to stop the rich from being able to take more.
A company earns 68 billion in profits then lays off 1800 workers? That is not fair. Or a company earns 113 billion and continues daily in raising the prices of gasoline.
Top level executives lie, cheat, steal and make bad business decisions to cause the company they represent to go downhill and the US gov bails them out.
All anyone wants is a fair shake. Give me the same breaks and opportunities. Let me go spend all of my money in the stock market or squander it adn give me a do-over.
Stop allowing big business from making political contributions. Put America back into America's hands

And this my friends is what you get in the form of the T-PUBLICANS insisting on tax breaks for the rich in the name of creating jobs.

Wow. I don't see how people live on that amount. It is crazy that people work 40+ hours a week (if they can find a FT job) and earn below the poverty rate for a family of four.

No wonder the disparity is getting larger. When a chunk of the population makes less, then the other chunk on top is making more. We need some common sense. If we run the poor into the ground, then we will have an uprising like every other country in history that has gone this route and our money will be worthless at that point.

Greed is not good. What's the saying: Pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered.

"Since 1980, roughly 5 percent of annual national income has shifted from the middle class to the nation's richest households, according to the Census Bureau." Reagan's legacy.

I use to make 6 figures until I was put out to pasture, I wish I made $26k again with benefits, sign me,, too old for corporate America, too young to retire. I'm surviving, but just barely.