(Social Security Admin) just released income distribution from W-2 for 2010. 81 dudes made $50 million + in wages, tips, deferred compensation, etc. in 2010.
The Gini index is a measure of inequality (see my calculation below)...higher values indicate more inequality, lower values indicate more equality. 2010 reaches 0.549 (virtually identical to the 0.550 of 2007). So the 3 peaks are 2000, 2007, and 2010 (all are close to financial market peak: stocks, real estate, annually speaking). These figures also speak to the volatility in Frank Rich's WSJ article. They may fall out of the top 1% of income but not likely far (and such falling is even less so for the wealth distribution).
Year
Gini
1990
0.516
1991
0.514
1992
0.521
1993
0.523
1994
0.523
1995
0.525
1996
0.528
1997
0.531
1998
0.533
1999
0.536
2000
0.541
2001
0.535
2002
0.532
2003
0.534
2004
0.538
2005
0.542
2006
0.545
2007
0.550
2008
0.545
2009
0.542
2010
0.549
Thomas W. Volscho Assistant Professor of Sociology Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work City University of New York-College of Staten Island 2800 Victory Blvd., Bldg. 4S, Room 210 Staten Island, NY 10314
phone: 718-982-3781 email: thomas.volscho at csi.cuny.edu<mailto:thomas.volscho at csi.cuny.edu> web: http://scholar.library.csi.cuny.edu/~volschot
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