BBC News - US income inequality at record high

 

One street in St Louis, Missouri, has been known to residents as the "dividing line"
 

BBC News - US income inequality at record high: The income gap between the richest 1% of Americans and the other 99% widened to a record margin in 2012, according to an analysis of tax filings.

The top 1% of US earners collected 19.3% of household income, breaking a record previously set in 1927.

Emmanuel Saez at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the economists who analysed the tax data, wrote in an analysis that despite recent policy changes aiming at lessening income inequality, the measures were relatively small in comparison to "policy changes that took place coming out of the Great Depression".

"Therefore, it seems unlikely that US income concentration will fall much in the coming years."

The top 1% of American households had income above $394,000 (£250,000) last year. The top 10% had income exceeding $114,000.