(This is a release sent out today by the Bell Policy Center, Colorado Center on Law and Policy and Colorado Fiscal Institute.)
The gap between the wealthiest Coloradans and everyone else turned into a chasm following the Great Recession, according to a report released today. In that time, Colorado's top 1 percent accounted for all of the state's growth in income, while the other 99 percent saw a decline in income.
The report, The Increasingly Unequal States of America, is published by the Economic Policy Institute. EPI’s Colorado partners include the Bell Policy Center, the Colorado Center on Law and Policy and the Colorado Fiscal Institute.
The report found that in Colorado, between 2009 and 2011(all data is adjusted for inflation):
“This has to be our priority in Colorado,” said Wade Buchanan, president of the Bell Policy Center. “It starts with opening doors to opportunity for Coloradans, because opportunity motivates effort, unleashes talent, feeds a dynamic economy and stimulates creativity and invention.”
Claire Levy, executive director of the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, said the growing disparity in income is a troubling trend that did not happen randomly.
“That disparity reflects policy choices in recent years that have prevented us from experiencing shared prosperity,” Levy said. “We should be adopt policies that create an economy that allows everyone to flourish.”
Carol Hedges, executive director of the Colorado Fiscal Institute, said the data shows Colorado needs to adopt policies that promote widespread prosperity, such as significant new investments in K-12 and higher education.
"When Coloradans in every corner of the state can get a quality education, they can compete for high-quality jobs and command the earning power necessary to propel the economy," Hedges said.
In assessing a longer-term period of inequality, the report found that from 1979 to 2007, Colorado generally tracked national averages:
The authors of The Increasingly Unequal States of America compiled data from the Internal Revenue Service for every state – the amount of income and the number of taxpayers in different income ranges – from 1928 to 2011. In tracking the recent prolonged period of inequality, the authors started with 1979 because that was the peak of a business cycle and because that year is seen as a starting point for rising income inequality. It ends with 2007 because it was the peak of the most recent business cycle.
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I thought with the Party of Incompence in charge, the clowns that can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a website that does not work, that everything was going to be alright.
Barack and Mike and Mark.
Hick and control of both houses at the state level.
Perhaps they need to call their good friend Vlad when the Olympics are over and see how to run an economy where everyone is really equal.
I suspect Pat Stryker will still be more equal than others.
This diary was written pre-Farm Bill passage, but the stats on our children remain the same. We have a tough journey ahead of us, particularly if we don't tend to our 'seedlings'. Thanks to the work of the Senate Majority and House Minority the most crippling aspects of SNAP cuts were averted.
Next up: a raise in the minimum wage. While it may arguably have a short-term, dampening effect on up to 500,000 jobs short-term, it would simultaneously lift the wages for 16.5 million Americans. It's a continuum of less-than-perfect choices; at the core it's about bending the arc in the right direction. It's about tackling the 'Big Lie": that low taxes are the panacea for a growing economy.
I like that guy! Thanks for posting that , Michael.
And here I thought that revenue and spending ws the purview of the GOP-led US House of Representatives as specified in the US Constituion which also indicates there are three barnches of government only one of which is under the total control of the Democrats. Silly me.