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Originally Posted by woj
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Woj, assuming your numbers are correct (I wouldn't normally cite Wikipedia, but let's take your numbers as a given), when you say 'almost doubled' what you mean is 'went from 6 million to 10.9 million' - a change of 4.9 million people over the last 13 years. Do you really think that the other 287+ million people in the country are doing as well or better over the same period of time? That 5 million new millionaires is 1.6% of the population... By contrast http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/13/news/economy/poverty_rate_income/index.htm shows you since 2000 three times as many people have fallen into poverty as have become millionaires, with poverty defined as earning less than $11,139 per indivual in annual income.
If your Wikipedia numbers are accurate 4 million people became millionaires while 3x as many fell into poverty. Median income has changed very little over the last 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the middle-income family only earned 11% more in 2010 than they did in 1980, while the richest 5% in America saw their incomes surge 42%. Again, why this happens is debatable... If it is OK or not is debatable... Whether or not it is happening is objective fact and basic arithmetic.