How concentrated has wealth in the United States become? How did our wealth become so concentrated? Most importantly, how can we move toward a more equal United States?

1. Extreme Inequality
Starting a Strategic Conversation
Washington, D.C.
July 16, 2007
AFL-CIO  Institute for Policy Studies  Center for Corporate Policy  Essential Information

2. We live
in extreme times.
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3. A sign of our times:
Extreme sports
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4. Pushing the envelope
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5. Inside the Beltway,
we don’t play extreme games
Maybe we should.
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6. We could ‘tailwhip’ Longworth
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7. Or maybe we could try
something really extreme
. . . like taking on extreme inequality
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8. How extremely concentrated has wealth
in the United States become?
Total net worth, 2004
$16.8
trillion $15.3
trillion
Does not include
total net worth
of the Forbes 400
Top 1% Bottom 90%
Source: Federal Reserve Board, January 2006
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9. How did our wealth become
so extremely concentrated?
Change in share of national income,
1979 - 2004
78%
-15%
Top 1% Bottom 80%
Source: Congressional Budget Office, 2006
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10. No one who’s anyone in American
political life now disputes inequality.
Not even the President.
‘The fact is that income
inequality is real; it's been
rising for more than 25 years.’
George W. Bush
State of the Economy address
New York, January 31, 2007
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11. So what can we do to reverse this
extreme concentration of wealth?
The conventional wisdom:
Not much
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12. Our reigning wisdom
We can’t turn the clock back on inequality
To give America’s bottom 80% in 2004 the same share
of the nation’s income they received in 1979 “would
have required transferring $664 billion from the top 1%
of households to the bottom 80%.”
Treasury Secretary “No one would suggest this is feasible
Lawrence Summers or even desirable . . .”
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13. So are we doomed to wander forever
in Ronald Reagan’s America?
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14. In public policy circles today
We discuss the absence of wealth,
or poverty, not wealth’s concentration.
We talk about lifting up the bottom.
We ignore the top.
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15. Should we swallow
this conventional wisdom?
Or has inequality in the
United States grown so
extreme — and dangerous
— that we need to look
beyond convention?
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16. The reality we must face
Inequality matters.
Who says?
A generation Economists
of researchers.
Political scientists
Psychologists Environmental
scientists
Demographers
Epidemiologists
Sociologists
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17. The more wealth concentrates
The slower an economy grows
The more corrupt politics become
The costlier the median-priced home
The fewer dollars charities receive
The less leisure time The lower the voter turnout
The less generous the social safety net
The more children in poverty The higher the homicide rate
The less efficiently business enterprises operate
The more environmental degradation
The longer the daily commute
The shorter the lives that everyone — rich, poor, and middle — live
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18. The research bottom line
It’s important to lift up the bottom.
But if we’re ever going to have
a more cohesive, democratic, healthy society,
we can’t let people at the top keep distancing
themselves from everybody else.
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19. Can public policy address
concentration at the top?
 Narrow the gaps between CEO and worker pay
 Cap the executive pay corporations can deduct
from taxes at 25 times what workers receive
 Address the inheritance of wealth
 Reform the estate tax to include
a more progressive rate structure
 End incentives for executive over-compensation
 Deny government contracts to companies
that overpay executives
 Raise the top marginal federal income tax rate
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20. Top marginal tax rates,
today and yesterday
Taxes on ordinary and capital gains income
91%
35% 39.6%
25%
20%
15%
2007 2000 1957
Ordinary Capital Gains
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21. Who’s enjoying today’s rates?
$1,700
Sports CEOs Private Equity Hedge Funds
$1,400
$1,300
$950
$900
$770
The Blackstone Group
Taxed mostly
at 15% capital
$398 gains rate
$291 $276
$213
$112 $97
$34 $35 $51 $60 $46 $46 $53 $59 $72 $17 $45
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22. What are we rewarding?
Richest 0.01%
Hard work and Income, in 2005 dollars
innovation should $25.8
million
certainly be fairly
rewarded.
But rewards have
gone far beyond
what almost anyone
would consider ‘fair.’ $3.2
million
1957 2005
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23. Back to the future
Gap between the average income of the top 0.01%
and the average income of the bottom 90%
891 times 882 times
179 times 175 times
1928 1955 1980 2005
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24. Americans once believed . . .
. . . that smart societies do not let wealth concentrate in a precious
few hands, but instead tax the wealthy to invest in opportunity for all.
‘In many countries of the free world
private enterprise is greatly different
from what we know here. In some, a
few families are fabulously
wealthy, contribute far less than they
should in taxes, and are indifferent to
the poverty of the great masses of the
people . . . A country in this situation is
Dwight D. Eisenhower
fraught with continual instability. It is National Automobile
ripe for revolution.’ Show Industry Dinner,
Detroit, October 17, 1960
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25. Democracy vs Plutocracy
Dwight Eisenhower, like
most Americans of his
day, had a world view
shaped by decades of
debate over grand
accumulations
of private wealth,
a debate that had been
raging ever since
Robber Baron fortunes
first appeared on the
American scene.
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26. The Good Society Creed
In those debates, our progressive
forbears advanced a systematic
critique of concentrated wealth.
Wealth and power, progressives
argued, go inseparably together.
In any society where wealth
concentrates, so will power.
And societies where wealth and
power concentrate never nurture
policies that help average people.
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27. Who preached this creed?
We’re not talking radicals
at the political margins.
We’re talking immensely
popular figures in the mainstream
of American political life.
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28. People like
Louis Brandeis
Supreme Court justice, 1916-1939
“We can either have democracy in
this country or we can have great
wealth concentrated in the hands
of a few. But we can't have both.”
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29. People like
Joseph Pulitzer
Crusading newspaper publisher
“(A)lways oppose privileged classes
. . . never be afraid to attack
wrong, whether by predatory
plutocracy or predatory poverty.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1907
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30. People like
Teddy Roosevelt
U.S. President, 1901-1909
“(T)he prime object should be to
put a constantly increasing burden
on the inheritance of those
swollen fortunes which it is
certainly of no benefit to this
country to perpetuate.”
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31. People like
Franklin Roosevelt
U.S. President, 1933-1945
“Great accumulations of wealth cannot be justified on the
basis of personal or family security. Such inherited economic
power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as
inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of
the generation which established our country.”
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32. The consensus: No more John D’s
Walter Lippmann,
America’s top pundit,
on the 1937 death, at 97,
of America’s first billionaire
“*John D. Rockefeller+ lived long enough
to see the methods by which such a
fortune can be accumulated outlawed by
public opinion, forbidden by statute, and
prevented by the tax laws . . . sentiment
has turned wholly against the private
accumulation of so much wealth.quot;
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33. A much less dominant rich
The top 1% share of national income
in the United States, 1913 - 1978
23.94%
17.96%
8.86%
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34. With the rich less dominant . . .
Politics, in the mid 20th
century, actually spoke
to working family needs.
Legislation significantly
impacted people’s lives.
 GI Bill
 FHA home loans
 Medicare
 Food Stamps
 Occupational Safety
and Health Act
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35. Enter the mass middle class
Public policies in the mid 20th century created a America
that boomed for Americans at every income level.
Real family income growth,
1947 - 1979
Up 116% Up 114%
Up 111%
Up 100% Up 99%
Up 86%
Bottom Second Middle Fourth Top Fifth Top 5%
Fifth Fifth Fifth Fifth
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36. The Great Public Policy U-Turn
In mid 20th century America, public policies shared wealth.
Over the last 30 years, public policies have concentrated it.
The top 1% share of national income
in the United States, 1913 - 2005
23.94%
21.83%
8.86%
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37. Exit the mass middle class
The more concentrated our nation’s wealth,
the less lives have improved for average Americans.
Real family income growth,
1947 – 1979 vs 1979 - 2005
Up 116% Up 114%
Up 111%
Up 100% Up 99%
Up 86%
Up 81%
Up 53%
Up 25%
Up 15%
Up 9%
Down 1%
Bottom Fifth Second Fifth Middle Fifth Fourth Fifth Top Fifth Top 5%
1947-1979 1979-2005
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38. Average Americans are going
nowhere fast
Average weekly earnings, 2005 $
$581.67 $561.74
$535.25 $544.81 $543.65
$514.24 $508.43
$361.02
1947 1967 1973 1979 1989 1995 2000 2005
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39. Should we start the century over?
If we simply erased the Robin-Hood-in-reverse policies
of the George W. Bush years, would we be back on track?
„I believe people are fed up with the
policies of the past six years. So many
people I talk to just want to hit the restart
button on the 21st century and redo it
the right way. And I agree with them.‟
Senator Hillary Clinton, May 29, 2005
Undoing the Bush years would reverse just one-sixth
of the growth in inequality since 1979.
Brookings Institution, June 2007
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40. We need to be bolder
One Modest Proposal
Set New Top Tax Rates
 50% on annual income
from $5 million to $10 million
 70% on income over $10 million
Number of households impacted
 38,410
Share of U.S. households
 0.03%
Estimated revenue in 2008
$105,000,000,000
Source: Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy Tax
Model, May 2007 (preliminary)
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41. Dare we tax the super-rich?
Wouldn’t they just find loopholes?
Wouldn’t they just take their money and run?
Wouldn’t the economy tank,
if rich people had less money available to invest?
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42. The argument: Higher rates never work.
The rich always exploit loopholes.
Yes, the rich do find loopholes. But top rates make a difference.
Actual share of income taxed,
68.4% 25,000 highest-income Americans
Top statutory
marginal rate
94% 41.4%
Top statutory
marginal rate 21.9%
70%
Top statutory
marginal rate
35%
1943 WW II 1967 Vietnam 2004 Iraq
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43. The argument: The rich will take their
money and run if they face higher taxes.
The rich don’t need higher rates as an excuse
to take their money offshore. They already do.
Tax haven abuses currently cost U.S. taxpayers
“$40 to $70 billion dollars each year.”
U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, August 2006
Tax havens can be closed.
Senators Carl Levin and Norm Coleman
have introduced an eight-point plan to close them.
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44. The argument: Without rich people
investing, the economy will tank.
 Capital formation doesn’t require Total annual $1.5
wealth to be concentrated in the dollar value trillion
of U.S.
pockets of a few plutocrats. mergers &
acquisitions
 Institutional investors — like
pension funds — make for
a powerful investing engine. $524.9
billion
 Our current concentration of wealth
fuels the ‘speculative reshuffling of
the ownership of corporations.’ $72.9
billion
1983 1994 2006
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45. The real question:
Dare we not tax the super-rich?
A quarter-century from now, what sort
of America do we want to see?
The top 1% share of national income
in the United States, 1913 - 2030 27%
23.94% 21.83%
8%
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46. A last word: Plutarch on plutocracy
“An imbalance between rich
and poor is the oldest and most
fatal ailment of all republics.”
Plutarch, ancient Greek historian
Isn’t it time we started talking cure?
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47. References
Slide 8: Total Net Worth, 2004. Source: Arthur B. Kennickell, Currents and Undercurrents: Changes in the Distribution of
Wealth in the U.S., 1989-2004, Federal Reserve Board, January 30, 2006. Table 11a. Available online at
http://www.federalreserve.gov/Pubs/FEDS/2006/200613/200613pap.pdf
Slide 9: Change in share of national income, 1979 – 2004. Source: Congressional Budget Office, Historical Effective Federal
Tax Rates: 1979 to 2004, December 2006. Available online at
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/77xx/doc7718/EffectiveTaxRates.pdf
Slide 17: A comprehensive introduction to the research on the social, economic, and political impact of income and wealth
concentration appears in the 2004 book, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits
Our Lives by Sam Pizzigati (Apex Press). The text now appears online at http://www.greedandgood.org/
Slide 21: Sports: Jonah Freedman, The 2007 Fortunate 50, SI.com. Available online at
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/more/specials/fortunate50/2007/index.html.
CEOs: Ellen Simon, Hundreds of CEOs top $8.3M pay mark, Associated Press, June 9, 2007. Available online at
http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2007-06-09-ceopay_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip.
Private equity: Henny Sender, How Blackstone Will Divvy Up Its IPO Riches, June 12, 2007. Available online at
http://www.equilar.com/NewsArticles/061207_wsj.pdf. Hedge funds: Alistair Barr, Simons, Griffin, Lampert earn over
$1 bln in 2006, MarketWatch, April 24, 2007. Available online at http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/simons-
griffin-lampert-earn-more/story.aspx?guid=%7B55DBE196-3461-495D-8B27-DE4CA6C5641D%7D
Slide 22: Richest 0.01%. Income, in 2005 dollars. Source: Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, Income Inequality in the United
States, 1913-1998, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2003. March 2007 update of tables and figures available online at
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/
Slide 23: Gap between the average income of the top 0.01% and the average income of the bottom 90%. Source: Analysis of
data from Saez and Piketty March 2007 update.
Slide 33: The top 1% share of national income in the United States, 1913-1978. Source: Saez and Piketty.
Slide 34: Real family income growth, 1947-1979. Source: Source: Analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data in Economic Policy
Institute, The State of Working America 1994-95 (M.E. Sharpe: 1994). Available online, through Inequality.org, at
http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm
Slide 35: The top 1% share of national income in the United States, 1913-2005. Source: Saez and Piketty.
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48. References
Slide 37: Real family income growth,1947–1979 vs 1979-2005. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables, Table F-
3. Available online, through Inequality.org, at http://www.demos.org/inequality/numbers.cfm
Slide 38: Average weekly earnings, 1947-2005, in 2005 $. Source: Economic Policy Institute Datazone. Available online at
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/datazone_dznational
Slide 42: Actual share of income taxed, 25,000 highest-income Americans. Source: For 2004 tax data, Internal Revenue
Service Statistics of Income Tax Stats: Individual Statistical Tables by Size of Adjusted Gross Income. Available online at
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=96981,00.html. For the 1943 data, Fritz Scheuren and Janet
McCubbin, Individual Income Tax Shares and Average Tax Rates, 1916-1950, Statistics of Income Bulletin, Volume 8,
Number 3, Winter 1988-89. For the 1967 data, Janet McCubbin and Fritz Scheuren, Individual Income Tax Shares and
Average Tax Rates, 1951-1986, Statistics of Income Bulletin, Volume 8, Number 4, Spring 1989. The “top 25,000”
figures round off actual average rates paid by the highest 23,730 incomes in 1943, the highest 27,066 in 1967, and the
highest 24,440 in 2004.
Slide 44: Total annual value of U.S. mergers & acquisitions. Sources: Thomson Financial Securities Data, Mergers & Corporate
Transactions Database. Available online at http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/
882_mergers_and_acquisitions_summary.html . Statistical Abstract of the United States 2004. No. 741.
Mergers and Acquisitions-Summary: 1990 to 2003. Available online at
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/04statab/business.pdf
Slide 45: The top 1% share of national income in the United States, 1913-2030. Source: Saez and Piketty, for data through
2005.
For updates on extreme inequality in the United States — and the campaigns against it — check the online weekly, Too Much,
published by the Council on International and Public Affairs. Available online at http://www.toomuchonline.org/
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