Income Inequality Rising Under Obama

My brief against progressive elite rule begins with failed job creation, followed closely by a failed K-12 education system in working class and poor neighborhoods. Democrats say one thing, do no-thing. Behind these failures is a single truth touched by my “progressive elite” characterization--we are outside a ruling class that governs for itself, not for the people.

Think our national elite is on your side? Then listen to AP reporter Paul Wiseman’s words on U.S. inequality:

• the richest 1%. . . earned more than 19% of the country's household income last year -- their biggest share since 1928 . . . And the top 10% captured a record 48.2% of total earnings last year. 

• In 2012, the incomes of the top 1% rose nearly 20% compared with a 1% increase for the remaining 99%. . . since the recession officially ended in June 2009, the top 1% have enjoyed the benefits of rising corporate profits and stock prices: 95% of the income gains reported since 2009 have gone to the top 1%. That compares with a 45% share for the top 1% in the economic expansion of the 1990s and a 65% share from the expansion that followed the 2001 recession. 

Comment: Obama became president in 2009. Wiseman’s statistics are an unspoken repudiation of Obama administration economic policies.

• The top 1% of American households had pretax income above $394,000 last year. The top 10% had income exceeding $114,000. 

• Economists point [out that] U.S. workers now compete with low-wage labor in China and other developing countries. Clerical and call-center jobs have been outsourced to countries such as India and the Philippines. . . technology [replaces] workers in performing routine tasks. 

• The percentage of American workers represented by unions has dropped from 23.3% in 1983 to 12.5% last year, [reducing] costs for many employers. . . one reason corporate profits hit a record this year . . ., even [with sluggish] economic growth [and] 7.2 % [unemployment]. 

Wiseman quotes Berkeley economics professor Emmanuel Saez defending America's top earners. Saez says highly paid executives or entrepreneurs are the "working rich," not your grandfather’s elite enjoying lives of leisure on inherited wealth. Exactly!! When a Berkeley professor defends the top 1%-10%--like himself people who succeeded by merit--it confirms we are in a transformed America led by wealthy progressives, with the rest of us inferiors trailing below.

They know it. Do you? And does their rule make us all better?