The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest. The widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans has resulting due to job layoffs affecting household budgets.
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans – those making more than $138,000 each year – earned 11.4 times the roughly $12,000 made by those living near or below the poverty line in 2008, according to newly released census figures. That ratio was an increase from 11.2 in 2007 and the previous high of 11.22 in 2003.
Household income declined across all groups, but at sharper percentage levels for middle-income and poor Americans. Median income fell last year from $52,163 to $50,303. Poverty jumped sharply to 13.2 percent, an 11-year high.
“No one should be surprised at the increased disparity,” said Richard Freeman, an economist at Harvard University. “Unemployment hurts normal workers who do not have the golden parachutes the folks at the top have.”
In the Star Telegram analysts attributed the widening gap to the wave of layoffs in the economic downturn that have devastated household budgets. They said while the richest Americans may be seeing reductions in executive pay, those at the bottom of the income ladder are often unemployed and struggling to get by.
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