Communist Web Friday 25th February 2000 9.30pm gmt USA: More billionaires, more poor people by Betsy Leondar-Wright United for a Fair Economy has produced a report entitled: Divided Decade: Economic Disparity at the Century's Turn, showing that the record-breaking economic boom of the 1990s has left Americans even more polarised and debt-ridden. For a quarter-century after World War II (between 1947 and 1979), families at all levels of income distribution saw their incomes double. But the next quarter-century changed course dramatically. Between 1979 and 1998, the top fifth gained 38 per cent and the top five percent gained 64 per cent - while the bottom fifth lost five per cent of real income. In 1989, the United States had 66 billionaires and 31.5 million people living below the poverty line. A decade later, the US has 268 billionaires and 34.5 million people... http://www.billkath.demon.co.uk/cw/usa/usa.html
