 I, this is Professor Gerald Friedman, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I'm here today to talk about income distribution in the United States. Who has gained and who has lost? And the basic data is over here, which is also on the course website. So you don't have to write everything down now. Since 1979, this is pre-tax income. And keep in mind that we have cut taxes for the rich more than for the poor. So the post-tax income data are even more skewed. The bottom 20% of the population, 60 million Americans, gained an average household in that group, gained $200. At least it's positive. The next 60%, that's 180 million Americans, gained on average $9,395. It's something. Kind of enough to pay their increase in health insurance premiums. The next 10%, and now we're talking about the top 20% of the population, 30 million Americans are in households that gained $30,900. Just enough to pay your tuition. The next 5%, and here we're into the top 30 million Americans, the next 5% gained $51,300. The next 4%, and here we're talking about 12 million Americans living among the richest households in the country, gained $107,400. That's pretty good. Keep in mind that it's more than the bottom 20% of the population gained in total. So these people are doing pretty well, right? Well no, not all that well. Let's get to the top 1% of the population. And at this point we're not yet in Paris Hilton territory. The bottom half of the top 1%, one and a half million Americans are in households that gained $301,600 in income since 1979. That's a lot of money. But not when you compare it to the top one half of 1%. So here we're talking about 0.4% of the population. That's a little more than 1.2 million Americans. They've gained $745,500. That sounds like a lot of money, doesn't it? Until you get to the ones who've really gained the top 1.1% of the population, 300,000 Americans live in those households, they have gained $5.978 million, almost $6 million. We're talking about people who have gained an awful lot of money. When you take it all together, these three groups, the top 1% of the population, 3 million people, they gained more than everybody else. We have increased production in this country and a majority of the gains have gone to the very rich, to the very small minority of people who are very rich. We can name some of them, Paris Hilston, her sister, Nikki Ritchie, and you can go on down the names of the CEOs, and it's a very small group of people. There are a few thousand of them who have cycled through the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans or the Forbes 2000, and that's a lot of people who have gained a lot of money, but it's not very many compared to all of the United States, and most of the wealth has been going to them. And with that, they've done very well, they live longer than they used to, the rest of us don't. Well, not quite, I mean, the rest of us have gained a little bit in life expectancy since 1979, the rich have gained a lot more. 15% of Americans, kind of most of these people, are officially poor. What does that mean? Family of four, an income of under $22,000. Try living on that. Try paying rent on that. Not to mention school books, clothes, maybe transportation to try to look for a job. Those are the people down here. They have not done well. If we take a more realistic poverty rate, at this point, the official poverty rate for the United States is about 15% of the country are poor, but if you take a more realistic poverty rate, New York City, for example, about 43% of the population are really poor, that is, poor in a meaningful way, including over a third of the elderly, and a higher proportion of children. And it makes a difference. It's not just, you know, you have, you can drive around fancy cars, it's kind of like, oh, it's a big, big fat hairy deal as my favorite cat would say, but it makes a difference. Being rich increases your chance of getting into college more than getting a good score, a top score on the math SAT. Being rich, some college is going to find a way to let you in because they can get the money. 700 on the math SAT, oh, that's nice, they'll make us look good on the statistics, but can you afford to pay your way? So is this a good thing? We're going to have to save that for next time. Till then, thank you, and have a nice day.