The 1 percent and rising inequality get plenty of attention in Seattle, but the metro area doesn't rank among America's most unequal.
Rising inequality — our new Gilded Age — has been a hot topic over the past few years. With President-elect Trump’s Team of Billionaires, I suspect the 1 percent will get less attention from the top come Jan. 20th, but that doesn’t mean the issue will go away. Certainly not in progressive Seattle.
A report from earlier this year from the Economic Policy Institute looked at inequality in the states and metro areas, with some surprising results. For example, as of 2013, the most recent year tracked, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue ranked No. 103 among American metros in inequality, ranked by the share of income going to the top 1 percent.
Jackson Hole, Wyo.; Bridgeport, Conn.; Naples, Fla.; Vero Beach, Fla., and Key West, Fla., ranked at the top. At the bottom — meaning least unequal distribution of income — were Rio Grande City, Texas; California, Md.; Los Alamos, N.M.; Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and Junction City, Kan. Portland ranked No. 221. A total of 916 metros were listed.
In metro Seattle, the top 1 percent held 17.9 percent of income. That compares with 24.5 percent in Silicon Valley and 23.6 percent in San Francisco (Jackson Hole’s 1 percent was nearly 68 percent).
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If you were in Seattle’s 1 percent in 2013, you needed to have income of at least $547,231. The U.S. average was $389,463.
The top 1 percent in Washington captured nearly 22 times more income than the bottom 99 percent. Seen another way, this cohort took home nearly 18 percent of all the income in the state. That compares with less than 10 percent in 1980. In 2013, the average annual income of the top 1 percent was more than $1.1 million. The average for the 99 percent was $50,372.
Commenting on the national trend, the report states: “The rise of top incomes relative to the bottom 99 percent represents a sharp reversal of the trend that prevailed in the mid-20th century…This earlier era was characterized by a rising minimum wage, low levels of unemployment after the 1930s, widespread collective bargaining in private industries (manufacturing, transportation [trucking, airlines, and railroads], telecommunications, and construction), and a cultural and political environment in which it was outrageous for executives to receive outsized bonuses while laying off workers.”
I would add the problem of job polarization, where automation and offshoring has hollowed out the middle-wage jobs that once existed.
Don’t look for policies to change this anytime soon.
Today’s Econ Haiku:
Amazon’s new store
A new way to have workers
Gone before their prime