Martin Luther King Day – As growing inequality sinks our nation - Wait What?

Martin Luther King Day – As growing inequality sinks our nation - Wait What?:

Martin Luther King Day – As growing inequality sinks our nation

Connecticut’s wealthiest residents pay about 5.5% of their income in state and local taxes.  The middle class pay about 10%, while the poor pay about 12% of their income in state and local taxes.

But Governor Dannel Malloy will continue to fight any and all proposals to require the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes.  In his now infamous speech to the Connecticut legislature in 2011, Malloy said he would fight a tax increase on the wealthy because he didn’t want to punish success?

And even if Connecticut raised the income tax rate significantly on Connecticut’s wealthiest, they would still be paying far less in state and local taxes than they would if they lived in New York, New York City, New Jersey or Massachusetts.

So what is the truth about inequality in the United States?

According to the Institute for Policy Studies,

Income disparities have become so pronounced that America’s top 10 percent now average nearly nine times as much income as the bottom 90 percent. Americans in the top 1 percent tower stunningly higher. They average over 38 times more income than the bottom 90 percent.

In the United States, wealth inequality runs even more pronounced than income inequality

Over the past century, the share of America’s wealth held by the nation’s wealthiest has changed markedly. That share peaked in the late 1920s, right before the Great Depression, 

Martin Luther King Day – As growing inequality sinks our nation - Wait What?: