That really soley depends on how you classify poorer.

Poorer as a percentage of wealth?  Yeah.

Poorer as in worse off...

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/09/how_rich_are_poor_people.html

I see your point with that article. What do you think about the CEO vs average worker salary in the past 30 years? Surely CEOs don't deserve that kind of percentage increase while leaving bread crumbs to the average worker.

The rich get richer by getting more money, and that's some more money that someone else can't have. So there you go, it's a problem because other people will have less money available.

If other people are getting poorer like now then it's a big problem. High inequality is not great for an economy, but neither is exact equality (which is impossible). We need minimum wage to at least go up with inflation (3%), not the pathetic 1% rise we just got in the UK! I don't know about other countries, but British CEO's must give up their bonuses (something they give themselves even if they are failing!) and use that money to create job's instead. We need to fix our aging infrastructure. A progressive tax system from 0% to 50% on income. Maybe a small tax on transactions of over £10000 (1%). Capitalism can work if anyone has the chance to promote their ideas. Saying that the state could help ordinary people to set up their own business's with loans. (similar to how Germany does it)

That's now how money works.  The economy isn't a zero sum game... wealth is created and destroyed.  So it's totally possible for somebody to get richer while also making other people more rich via the creation of more wealth.

I think it's important to look at a company 30 years ago and a company today.  In the last 30 years there have been a LOT of mergers, companies controlling affilaites etc.

A big complaint now is like "The same 20 companies own EVERYTHING".

I'd argue that being a CEO is far harder today then it was 30 years ago.  Throw into that buisness being more complicated with many more facets (social media, interent making it hard to hide stuff)...

it's a lot harder to be a ceo now then it was 30 years ago.   Companies could be 10-20 times bigger then they were back then.

Whether it's equal to the salary bump, i can't really say... which is sad, since it's something you'd expect MOST statistically minded people would think about.

In generally too I think other things aren't taken into account.

For example, the talent pool for a lot of jobs has increased.  First off, more people are more educated then ever, which means that more people are available to work the same jobs,  Secondly, women are way more active in the work force now then they were in the past.  Which is great, but it's worth noting that the workforce has practically doubled because of it.

Additionally, the skill cap for a lot of jobs have dropped...  I mean... imagine for example being a tax account 30 years ago, versus today.  30 years ago you MAYBE had an old time slow ass calculator, and a giant book of tax regulations.

Today it's all on the computer... and you can search a document on tax law pretty eaisly with something as simple as CTRL F.

Automization, and just mechanics that help make jobs easier etc.

There is a LOT more at  play then people generally take into effect then people do.   I couldn't really guess if it's a reasonable or unreasonable increase because of it.    CEO is just a job that has a HIGH requirement level and skill level.... and in general requires some things that you aren't taught in school.  All kinds of jobs like that seem to be exploding in pay.  Like Proffesional Atheletes.  

All they do is play a sport, but they get paid MILLIONS because they were born with a superior body constantly dedicate themsleves to be in the condition to play sports... and not many people can do it.

Put it all together and CEO's are probably still overpaid somewhat from 30 years ago.... but maybe not.  I imagine the answer is soc lose that it doesn't really help either side, hence why nobody has attempted it.

Though it is also worth noting that CEO salaries started REALLY skyrocketing immedialty after we passed laws to cap CEO salaries.  There is a 1 million dollar cap on "non-perfomance" based pay when it comes to CEO's as far as company taxation goes.

So that led to the rise of giving CEO's stock, or stock options.  Which lead to CEO's generally making out like bandits for stock prices rising.

Depends on the rate of changes. I really haven't looked into things but to me it often sounds like the rich are getting richer quite rapidly which hints at them getting richer quicker than more wealth is created. But, like I said, I haven't looked into things so I could be horribly wrong.

There is an issue, but it doesn't have to do with rich individuals.

The problem is rich households.  Which makes it far more complicated.

Individual Gini-coefficent is actually down.

The average gap between a rich guy and poor guy dropped.  (CEO increases being an outlier so it seems.)

The gap between rich households and poor households have increased however... and keep increasing.

Confusing right?   It's not so much the rich are getting richer (outside of some small exceptions) but in fact that the rich are marrying richer.

While the poor are marrying poorer... or not marrying at all.

Which makes it a lot harder to target.   Maybe get rid of the marriage credit above a certain tax level and make it so married people can't file seperatly?  I'm not sure that really makes a big difference.

Proof tax is a very good thing for equality.

Amazing how much it increased under Thatcher and yet our's is one of the lowest in the world still

If the poor could create a parallel world that did not rely on the need of money and materialism they would do it in a blink of an eye. There is only so much of the economic pie to go around, the rich get a much larger share of the pie than the middle and working classes. The poorest of them all get next to nothing, half of the world's population live on less than $3 per day (less than $1,000 per year).