In the United
States, the disposable income of families in the middle of the income
distribution shrank by 4 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the OECD.[1] Over roughly the same period, the income
of the top 1 percent increased by 11 percent. In 2012, the average CEO of one
of the 350 largest U.S. companies made about $14.07 million, while the average
pay for a non-supervisory worker was $51,200.[2] In other words, the average CEO made 273
times more than the average worker. In 1965, CEOs were paid just 20 times more;
by 2000, the figure peaked at 383 times. The ratio fell in the wake of the
dot-com bubble and then in the financial crisis and its recession, but in 2010
the ratio began to rebound. According to an OECD report, rising incomes of the
top 1 percent in the E.U. accounted for the rising income inequality in Europe
in 2012, though that level of inequality was “notably less” than the one in the
U.S.”[3] Nevertheless,
in both cases the increasing economic gap between the very rich and everyone
else was not limited to the E.U. and U.S.; a rather pronounced global
phenomenon of increasing economic inequality was clearly in the works by 2013.
The full essay is at "Natural vs. Artificial Income Inequality."
1.Eduardo Porter, “Inequality in America: The Data is Sobering,” The New York Times, July 30, 2013.
2.
Mark Gongloff, “CEOs
Paid 273 Times More Than Workers in 2012: Study,” The Huffington Post, June
26, 2013.
3.
Kaja B. Fredricksen, “Income
Inequality in the European Union,” OECD, Economics Department Working Paper
No. 952, 2012.