Highest Earners' Pay Quintupled in 2009, Government Data Show

[The Straight Story]

Highest Earners' Pay Quintupled in 2009, Government Data Show


As the recession pushed U.S. incomes down last year, America’s highest earners -- 72 people who made more than $50 million -- earned an average of $84 million each.

Those top-end Americans earned a combined $6 billion in 2009, down from $11.9 billion earned by 131 individuals with wages above $50 million in 2008, according to Social Security Administration data. Nationally, the average annual wage fell by $598 to $39,055 and the median wage fell by $253 to $26,261 during the worst economic slump since the Great Depression.

The Social Security Administration today corrected its statistics on top earners that were released Oct. 15. A mistake was discovered in an internal review of the W-2 forms used to compile the data, said Mark Lassiter, an agency spokesman. The agency discovered that two people filed multiple W-2 forms totaling more than $32 billion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-25/america-s-top-earners-saw-pay-quintuple-last-year-to-average-519-million.html

[slackmaster]

1. I always knew I wasn't a high earner

:argh:

[Newest Reality]

2. The people that matter most in this

bizarre clown show of Class War reality are doing fine, great and better!

Gee, I wonder if that has any relevance or bearing on the rhetorical bird-puke they are stuffing down our hungry gullets and the diminishing returns that our collective disenfranchisement is bringing us?

You can underscore this transfer of wealth over and over again, but it is not going to sink in and stand out above the noise of the corporate media that ignores the most essential fact of today's growing and monumental inequity. Yet, the more power and abstract money accrued, the more our plunge into a technologically-gated dystopia is forged and assured.

This is the kind of thing that may only be clear in some distant hindsight, on a larger scale.

Meanwhile, back to all the irrelevant, synthesized white noise that drones on and on to drown out the most important issues we face right now.