New Gilded Age

We're seeing a New Gilded Age as the income gap widens.

News items:
  * On Manhattan's Upper East Side, townhouse mansions built in the 1890s are selling for as much as $40 million and being renovated to their original single-family uses.
  * Lower income families are seeing declines as the wealthy gain in prosperity.
  * Education debt has increased, even as college graduates struggle to find jobs.
  
   A new report from the Federal Reserve documents the income slide for families in the lowest 20 percent bracket, while those in the top 20 percent show increases in net worth.
   The Fed study, done every three years, shows that family incomes, adjusted for inflation, "moved in different directions between 2010 and 2013." 
   "Families at the bottom of the income distribution saw continued substantial decline in average real incomes between 2010 and 2013, continuing the trend observed" in earlier surveys, the Fed report said.
   Moreover, "Only families at the very top of the income distribution saw widespread income gains" over the course of the three-year span. Overall, median income -- the point in the middle -- fell 5 percent, from $49,000 to $46,700. the Fed reported, while the average -- reached by totalling all incomes and dividing by the number of families -- increased by 4 percent, from $84,100 to $87,200. This happens whenever those at the top have wider gains than those at the bottom. And the gap widens when the number for those at the top goes up when the number for those at the bottom goes down.
   Simplistic example: In the series 1,2,3,4,5, the median is 3 and the average (arithmetic mean) is also 3. However, in the series 1,2,3,7,9, the median is still three but the mean is higher -- 4.4. 
   It's the same with an income distribution survey, especially when the number for those at the bottom goes down, but for those at the top it goes up.
   
   The Fed survey showed that income for the 10 percent at the top of the scale rose by 10 percent, "barely budged" for families in the middle, and dropped sharply for families in the lowest 10 percent group.

   So without throwing too many more numbers at you, it comes down to this: The economy may be improving (then again, it may not be), and those who have are getting more, but for the rest of us, it's still a struggle.
   It was true 120 years ago, when the Manhattan mansions were built, and it's true again today, and the latest report from the Federal Reserve Board provides more evidence that the inequality gap described in detail by Thomas Piketty in his book, "Capital in the 21st Century" does indeed exist and it's getting wider.
   Here's another thought to consider: When will the Republican Progressives and trust-busters that were led by the likes of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft be coming back?