The Rich Get Poorer

http://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2010/11/the-rich-get-poorer

Those income inequality statistics from the IRS about how the rich got richer in 2009, cited in the Bob Herbert New York Times column mentioned here, turn out to be bogus, Bloomberg News reports, via TaxProf:

Two people were found to have filed multiple W-2 forms that made them into multibillionaires, an agency official said. Those reports skewed statistical wage tables, released Oct. 15, and made it appear that top earners in the United States had seen their pay quintuple in 2009 to an average $519 million each. The agency today released corrected tables that showed the average incomes of the top earners, in fact, declined 7.7% to $84 million each.

Oops. It'll be interesting to see whether the Times corrects Mr. Herbert's column, or whether Mr. Herbert changes his opinion, based on the new data.

by Editor  |  Nov 4, 2010 at 11:39 am Related Topics:  Income Inequality, Press receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free futureofcapitalism.com mailing list