Rising Tide?

President Lyndon Baines Johnson was fond of saying that "a rising tide lifts all boats."

Perhaps that was so in the 1960's. Much has changed since then.

A graph prepared by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that from 1947 until 1975, income gains increased at about the same rate for all income groups. Rates of increase for the bottom fifth of families, median income families and wealthy families were almost indistinguishable.

Since 1975, though, there has been no income gain for the bottom one-fifth of families (2010 income same as 1973); about a 15% increase in incomes of median income families over the same 35 year period, and more than fifty percent increase in income for wealthy families.


If people who work for a living believe they have not got ahead at all in the past three and a half decades, they seem to be right.

The 95th percentile, of course, refers to families with income greater than 95% of the population. What about those in the top 1%? How about the top 0.1%? Here's another graph showing who has really made out. Based on slightly different data, but it tells the same story.

So if there is class warfare, who's winning? Billionaire Warren Buffet got it right: "my class is winning."