Interesting article on this topic on The Economist:

The rich, the poor and the growing gap between them

The rich are the big gainers in America’s new prosperity

….But after 2000 something changed. The pace of productivity growth has been rising again, but now it seems to be lifting fewer boats. After you adjust for inflation, the wages of the typical American worker—the one at the very middle of the income distribution—have risen less than 1% since 2000. In the previous five years, they rose over 6%. If you take into account the value of employee benefits, such as health care, the contrast is a little less stark. But, whatever the measure, it seems clear that only the most skilled workers have seen their pay packets swell much in the current economic expansion. The fruits of productivity gains have been skewed towards the highest earners, and towards companies, whose profits have reached record levels as a share of GDP.

(more here)

My analysis on historic home prices .vs. income on Goofyblog from a few weeks ago also goes into this.

This all shouldn’t come as a surprise should it?   We have a president that’s been giving the top 1% in this country huge tax breaks for the past 6 years, while sitting by twiddling his thumbs as corporate America ships everyone’s job to India and the far east. 

Personally I know I feel the pinch.  My rent is about 10% more than it was in 2000, yet I make 2/3 of what I made in 2000.  (Contrary to popular belief, Goofyblog is not a money maker, I pull in around 35 cents a day on average from all those ads you see, and Dolly’s cut is 90% of that.)