---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 12:28:38 -0500 From: Doug Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: SURORISE - Nega Rich distort US avg. income data > 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. >
