If you are on the top, you are doing better.  If you are middle class, your income is down.  No word in the article regarding the poor though.  If this reality continues, why would anyone expect people to continue to support the current system?

http://economy.money.cnn.com/2012/03/05/income-goes-up-especially-for-the-rich/?hpt=hp_t3

Overall, salaries and wages grew 2.1%. But the super-rich saw an 11.2% hike, and those just below them enjoyed a 4.6% increase.

But the middle class saw a drop of 0.7% in wages.

There is a slight problem with that.

The data isn't actually measuring what it says it's measuring.

It's not measuring wages and salaries.  It's measuring incomes... specifically by measuring where the salaries lay, and NOT looking at individual returns.

For the last decade and a half or so, the ginicoefficent has increased mostly due to the rise of dual income families and the rise of single parent families. 

Dual income families making the "rich" richer because instead of one person having a job, it's two.  Sometimes as much as doubling the rich families number, and forcing a middleclass person to be bumped "up" as rich.

This seems pretty likely when you consider the thresholds which qualify you as "The top 1%" and as "rich"  Dropped.

So it's a situation where rich peoples wages grew..... yet it took less to qualify as rich.  Which would indicate that some rich people all of a sudden got a LOT more rich, in both groups.  While other rich people seemingly disapeared from the books... yet somehow their wealth stuck around in that top percent somehow.

Can you think of another reason outside of marriage due to an aging population?

Also, it does give info for the poor.  You just have to do the math and realize that "Rich" "Middle class" etc are just moving targets that change each year depending on everyones final score.

Economic class is graded on a curve just like class rank.

Also you convenitly left out the part where the middle class saw a 1.5% increase in income.  Making your thesis wrong even just from the article.  Salaries are down, but income is up. 

Yes! Oh wait I'm middle class..

Why do people obsess over what the rich are making? The top 1% of earners pays something like 40% of all taxes, and there are like ~50% of people who don't pay taxes at all in America...so quit your whining.

I'm not saying the thread creator is whining, but whoever keeps making these articles and getting upset about being poor. If you want equality go to Scandinavia.

I see your point but it becomes hard to objectively debate these serious issues when people see things like this.  http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/g-e-paid-no-taxes-5-1-billion-20110325-082417-878.html 

GE paying no taxes on $5.1 billion in profits. Taxing the donald trump's  less ego maniac rich cousin is nothing when things like happen. More importantly countries are so divided on this issues of taxation not sure just in US but here in Canada too. I am sure the rest of the world has such issues. 

They may pay 40% of the tax but they also control at least 42 percent of the wealth (top 1%).  Seems fair enough to me and the Bush tax cuts were not needed for "job creation".  Basically, the Bush tax cuts didn't do shit but allow the rich to become richer.  Pretty hard to create jobs when most of those "job creators" are actually just sitting on their wealth or they are investing it into stocks of large corps which don't really give a fuck about creating jobs in the USA.  I didn't really try to look up too much data but I believe the lower percentages should care considering all the tax loopholes and bs that goes along with the USA tax code.  Basically, get rid of the IRS and go to a national sales tax if you want to be "fair" and have taxes based on consumption.  Everything else is just pure fucking bullshit.

http://www.mybudget360.com/top-1-percent-control-42-percent-of-financial-wealth-in-the-us-how-average-americans-are-lured-into-debt-servitude-by-promises-of-mega-wealth/

Yeah I get that, people are mad about wealth being unequal and that's fine. I just don't get why people think they should get a free ride through life on other people's hard earned tax dollars. I know not everyone has a fair shake in life, but that just means you need to work harder to get where you need to be. I think all the social programs we have just make people lazy and expect handouts. I don't know when things like welfare went from emergency assistance to people going through a tough time...to what it is now where everyone expects handouts. 

And the other thing I want to say is bringing the rich down through overtaxation isn't going to make things better for the poor. Yeah it'll be more equal but things wouldn't be better. 

Yea that is why I am starting to like the consumption tax more and getting rid of the IRS.  Politicians can just use the IRS and their tax code to further fuel the "class warfare".  If we just paid tax on whatever we bought (and got reimbursed for basic necessities like food) then this would be more fair.  At first I wasn't really into the idea but then I read Fair Tax book by Neal Boortz.  While I didn't agree with everything in his book (and I actually highly dislike him and his radio show), he does make a compelling argument about setting USA up to become once again a manufacturing leader, etc... by getting rid of corp taxes, etc.. by switching to a consumption tax.

Well, I haven't read the article (nor am I going to), but yeah, the middle and bottom classes have been hurting these past few years. Best way to deal with it is to tackle inflation, and to stop handing over trillions of dollars to Wall Street.

As for the tax issue I see propping up above. Let's keep the Bush and payroll tax cuts. Pay for it by cutting back on foreign entanglements.

47% of Americans do not pay federal income tax. Looks like we're 47% of the way there.