You Are Probably Worse Off Than You Were Four Years Ago | The New Republic

You Are Probably Worse Off Than You Were Four Years Ago | The New Republic

 In March, the Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez shocked a lot of people by calculating that during the first year of the recovery from the 2007-2009 recession, incomes for the top one percent grew by 11.6 percent while incomes for the bottom 99 percent grew a mere 0.2 percent. (All figures here are in “real dollars,” i.e., they discount for inflation.) Granted, the one percent had taken it on the chin during the recession; from 2007 to 2009, incomes had fallen twice as fast for the one percent (36.3 percent) as for the average family (17.4 percent). The rich always lose big in recessions, because so much of their income comes from capital gains. (Indeed, the one percent took an even bigger share of the nation's income losses between 2000 and 2002, which included the “tech bubble” recession of 2001.) But Saez’s calculations showed that the one percent had come roaring back. In 2010, fully 93 percent of the recovery ended up in the pockets of the one percent. One year later, the bottom 99 percent were marching in the streets.