Average annual income of the top 1% is $1,153,293 while that of the bottom 99% is $45,567.
from My Budget 360
Part of the challenge with distorted income distributions is that it hollows out the middle class. The middle class in the United States is now a minority. We have more people making higher incomes and more people making way less and this group is growing much faster. Our economy has taken a bimodal distribution with extremes on both sides. We have a record number of people on food stamps but also a record number of higher income households. The only problem is that the low range of the ladder is growing much faster than that at the top. For every person that makes it into the upper income brackets you have three that fall out of the middle class and into the low income wage trap. Part of the political anger we are seeing in the US and other parts of Europe is that the elites are simply ignoring the needs of the masses. In many cases this purposeful ignorance is because their wealth is built on keeping many stuck on a perpetual hamster wheel where productivity gains only go to a small section of society.