Rich Getting *MUCH* Richer

It is an old catch-cry that I have heard many times during my life: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Well recent figures released by the Social Security Administration in the United States shows that during the financial crisis and the ‘recovery’ that followed the saying should probably go something more like: The rich get MUCH richer and the poor go broke.

According to this article (here) in the Huffington Post one out of 34 people in the USA who had an income in 2008 earnt absolutely nothing in 2009. Not one cent.

During and after the global financial crisis the incomes of low, average, and median income earners has been decimated. But the incomes of the super-wealthy have gone up five fold going from an average income of US$91 million up to a staggering US$519 million per year.

The wealth shift is so dramatic that the top 74 income earners in the US made as much money as the bottom 19 million money earners.