In his State of the Union address last week, President Barack Obama cheered rising wages. What he didn’t mention is that much of the income gained since the recession has gone into the pockets of the richest Americans.
In 39 U.S. states, the top 1 percent of earners gobbled up at least half of all of the income gains between 2009 and 2012. And in 17 of those states, the top earners got every bit of the income growth in those years. That’s according to a new paper released Monday by the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on labor issues.
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But wage growth is still a lot slower than it was before the recession. And it’s still too slow to keep up with the growth enjoyed by the 1 percent, who typically don’t have to beg employers for raises.
Infographic by Alissa Scheller
