Fault Lines The Top 1% (2009– ) Online

Fault Lines The Top 1% (2009– ) Online

Barely three years since the great recession, many middle income and poor Americans are still hurting. In the months before the Occupy Movement makes headlines, rising inequality in the US is starting to bring people into the streets. The richest 1% of US Americans earn nearly a quarter of the country's income and control an astonishing 40% of its wealth. Inequality in the US is more extreme than it's been in almost a century -- and the gap between the super rich and the poor and middle class people has widened drastically over the last 30 years. Meanwhile, in Washington, a bitter partisan debate over how to cut deficit spending and reduce the US' 14.3 trillion dollar debt is underway. As low and middle class wages stagnate and unemployment remains above 9%, Republicans and Democrats are tussling over whether to slash funding for the medical and retirement programs that are the backbone of the US's social safety net, and whether to raise taxes -- or to cut them further. The United ...