When it comes to income inequality, it is not just that the richest Americans are getting richer, it is also that the rest of Americans are getting poorer.
In 2003 the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992, but by 2013 that had slipped to $56,335, a decline of about 36%.
That basically comes down to the top 5% having benefited from the “economic recovery” and could reinvest that money or put it in un-taxable off-shore accounts, while 95%, the people who do the actual work, saw no benefit.
Rather, they saw a loss.
A study by the Russell Sage Foundation, the principal American foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences, found that the increase for the well to do was 14% during those 10 years, and that the greater your wealth, the better you did.
In short, the tickle down has yet to happen.