You already know this:
The rich do keep getting richer
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As the gap between the super-rich and the rest of us continues to grow, the United States boasts a record number of millionaires, according to recent surveys.
One estimate by TNS, a global market research firm in New York, estimates that the population of millionaire households increased by 5% in 2006 to 9.3 million. Other estimates say there are 7.5 million to 8 million millionaires.
But that isn’t the real story: it is the growth of wealth held by the nation’s billionaires that staggers the imagination.
The Wall Street Journal recently asked the Internal Revenue Service for information on the 400 richest U.S. taxpayers. It found those taxpayers reported a total of $85.6 billion in income for one year in 2005. The average annual income reported was $214 million.
The share of U.S. income controlled by those 400 taxpayers more than doubled over 10 years, the IRS reported.
In 2005 they controlled an astonishing 1.15% of all U.S. income, compared to 0.49% a decade earlier.
The Journal reported that after adjusting for inflation the minimum amount of income to make the top 400 taxpayers had tripled since 1992.
The IRS figures also probably underestimated the actual income of these taxpayers. It consists of adjusted gross income, which does not include tax-exempt interest from municipal bonds and also excludes income spent on various deductions such as moving expenses, alimony, and health insurance.
Where do the rich get most of their income? Capital gains on the sale of successful investments accounted for $50 billion of the total, for an average of $125 million per taxpayer.
Meanwhile, the median after tax income of all taxpayers in 2005 was $55,900.