This image from the CBO report, Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007 (pdf), helps explain a general sense of voter unease and stress.

The only household group that showed a gain in “market income” (that’s income before taxes) in this almost 30-year period is the upper 1%. In this chart, like most others that talk about the top quintile, the upper 1% skews the data for the quintile as a whole.

From the report:

“[T]he share of total market income received by the top 1 percent of the population more than doubled between 1979 and 2007, growing from about 10 percent to more than 20 percent.” and “The Gini index for household market income rose from 0.479 in 1979 to 0.590 by 2007.”

The Gini index is a measure of income inequality; our horrific rating is more akin to third world countries with dictators than western democracies — Canada and France are low-30s, Germany and Japan are mid-to-upper-20s.

Likewise …

Average real after-tax household income for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007… For the 60 percent of the population in the middle of the income scale (the 21st through 80th percentiles), average after-tax household income grew 37 percent between 1979 and 2007.

Who is the “1%”? According to the WaPost:

[T]he top 1 percent of American households had a minimum income of $516,633 in 2010… The average income of the top 1 percent of US households in 2011 is $1,530,773… Average wealth of the top 1 percent was almost $14 million in 2009…

The CBO report analyzes research on the 1% that suggests the dominant professions are medicine, law and finance.

Oh. And there is no real change if you look at after-tax income; again, the only group with growth is the 1 percenters.

Cross-posted from Google+