From a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities study, as interpreted by Connecticut Voices for Children:
Connecticut ranks third in the country, with its richest residents— the top five percent of households— having average incomes 17 times as large as the bottom 20 percent of households and five times as large as the middle 20 percent of households. The top five percent of Connecticut’s households receive 20 percent of the state’s income, even without counting capital gains.
Seen the latest from Piketty, Saez and Zucman, It’s a little wonky, but surprisingly navigable. The short of it? Our economic system actually sucks. Really. Big time. Especially since 2000.
The NYT breaks down some of the data here, but the paraphrase of the author’s conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt. A bit simplistic, to put it kindly.
Thank you very much for these links. I hadn’t seen the first one.
I think these guys make for a good writing team.
There is some serious wonk in there, but I think they have a reasonable respect for the uninitiated. What I take away from all of that is the only thing the authors have left to the imagination here is the willfully ignorant bullshit that will be offered as rebuttal in the mainstream press.
If, that is, the report generates anything more than a hohum and a yawn from media commodity brokers.