On 2011-09-14, at 8:23 AM, Andy wrote:
> http://www.salon.com/news/us_economy/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/09/13/the_hourglass_economy
>
> Quoting a WSJ article I don't have access to:
>
> "We now have a Gini index similar to the Philippines and Mexico --
> you'd never have imagined that," says Phyllis Jackson, P&G's vice
> president of consumer market knowledge for North America. "I don't
> think we've typically thought about America as a country with big
> income gaps to this extent."
>From the same article:
"In the wake of the worst recession in 50 years, there's little doubt that the American middle class—the 40% of households with annual incomes between $50,000 and $140,000 a year—is in distress. Even before the recession, incomes of American middle-class families weren't keeping up with inflation, especially with the rising costs of what are considered the essential ingredients of middle-class life—college education, health care and housing. In 2009, the income of the median family, the one smack in the middle of the middle, was lower, adjusted for inflation, than in 1998, the Census Bureau says.
"The slumping stock market and collapse in housing prices have also hit middle-class Americans. At the end of March, Americans had $6.1 trillion in equity in their houses—the value of the house minus mortgages—half the 2006 level, according to the Federal Reserve. Economist Edward Wolff of New York University estimates that the net worth—household assets minus debts—of the middle fifth of American households grew by 2.4% a year between 2001 and 2007 and plunged by 26.2% in the following two years."