US Economic Recovery: Part XI

Amerika: Land of the Precariat

"In sociology and economics, the precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare as well as being a member of a Proletariat class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labour to live. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of lack of job security, in other words intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.

 

 

2009-2012: Uneven recovery from the Great Recession

From 2009 to 2012, average real income per family grew modestly by

 

6.0% (Table 1). Most of the gains happened in the last year when average

incomes grew by 4.6% from 2011 to 2012.

However, the gains were very uneven. Top 1% incomes grew by

31.4% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.4% from 2009 to 2012.

Hence, the top 1% captured 95% of the income gains in the first three years

of the recovery. From 2009 to 2010, top 1% grew fast and then stagnated

from 2010 to 2011. Bottom 99% stagnated both from 2009 to 2010 and from

2010 to 2011. In 2012, top 1% incomes increased sharply by 19.6% while

bottom 99% incomes grew only by 1.0%. In sum, top 1% incomes are close to

full recovery while bottom 99% incomes have hardly started to recover.

http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2012.pdf

Over time period noted above: