Two America's: Economic Recovery Tilts To Highest-Income Americans
/Many economists believe the economic
recovery has indeed taken two tracks. Upper-income families, who pay
the most in taxes and reaped the largest gains from the tax cuts
President Bush championed, drove a surge of consumer spending a year
ago that helped to rev up the recovery. Wealthier households also have
been big beneficiaries of the stronger stock market, higher corporate
profits, bigger dividend payments and the boom in housing. Lower- and
middle-income households have benefited from some of these trends, but
not nearly as much. For them, paychecks and day-to-day living expenses
have a much bigger effect. Many have been squeezed, with wages under
pressure and with gasoline and food prices higher. The resulting
two-tier recovery is showing up in vivid detail in the way Americans
are spending money. [more]
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