From wkatzfishman@igc.apc.org Tue Apr 21 12:00:29 1998 Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 18:54:45 -0700 (PDT) From: walda katz fishman <wkatzfishman@igc.apc.org> Subject: Mega-rich distorting U.S. income statistics >
>Published Sunday, April 5, 1998
>
>Mega-rich distorting U.S. income statistics >
>Scripps Howard News Service
>
>Bill Gates and a handful of other billionaires are messing up >America's economic statistics.
>
>The difference between America's average -- or mean -- income and >its median income is at an all-time high, according to the Census >Bureau.
>
>While many people don't know the difference between these >measures, they illustrate a point everyone understands -- the >growing inequity in how wealth is distributed in the United >States.
>
>"We don't say that the rich are getting richer -- but that there >is a disparity in income, that certainly has been the case," said >Ed Welniak, chief of the Census Bureau's Income Statistics Branch. >
>The estimated mean income in 1996 for people of working age was >$25,466. This figure is calculated by taking the total of all >incomes in America and dividing by the number of people who earned >money. It's a simple measure, one that is easily distorted by high >earnings among those at the top.
>
>But the median income (that is, half the people earned more than >this amount and half earned less) was only $17,587 that year. The >mean is 45 percent larger than the median. >
>It's a difference that demographers have been charting for years. >It is the reason that the Census Bureau carefully reports both >statistics whenever discussing personal economics. >
>"The median is a measure that is less sensitive to extremes than >is the mean," Welniak said.
>
>The extremes, in particular, represent the relative handful of >Americans who hold enough wealth to distort the averages. >Microsoft chairman Gates, for example, is worth an estimated $38 >billion. The growth in his personal wealth in one year alone was >enough to account for several dollars in the difference between >the mean and median incomes.
>
>That difference has been steadily increasing. In 1974, the mean >was only 36 percent larger than the median. >
>"There are so many different factors cited for this," Welniak >said. He noted that those with college educations often earn far >more than those without. And household income -- boosted when the >salaries of two or more people are combined -- has been falling >with the proliferation of single-parent families. >
>In 1996, the richest 20 percent of the American public owned 49 >percent of the nation's wealth. Twenty years earlier, the top >fifth owned just 43 percent.
>
>People in the bottom fifth have about 4 percent of the nation's >money, a figure that hasn't changed much in 20 years. Everyone >else in the middle declined from owning 52 percent to 47 percent >of the wealth.
>
>"The only group for which we are seeing an increase are at the >top," Welniak said.
>
>© Copyright 1998 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. >
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