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Almost two years to the day that the Occupy Wall Street movement started, a report confirms that the rich are getting even richer. The top 1 per cent of earners collected 19.3 per cent of household income in 2012, their largest share in Internal Revenue Service figures going back a century. U.S. income inequality has been growing for almost three decades.

But until last year, the top 1 per cent's share of pre-tax income hadn't surpassed the 18.7 per cent it reached in 1927, according to an analysis of IRS figures dating to 1913 by economist Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, and three colleagues.

Saez wrote that 2012 incomes of the richest Americans might have surged in part because they cashed in stock holdings to avoid higher capital gains taxes that took effect in January.

The nation's top 1 per cent have been the targets of resentment in recent years which was manifested in the Occupy Wall Street movement that started in September 2011. The movement started in New York's Zuccotti Park, and thousands camped out and marched for months calling for wide-reaching change in the capitalist system. The adopted chant was 'We are the 99 per cent' and the movement spread to cities throughout the U.S.

A report by the Congressional Budget Office found that the income inequality in the U.S. had not risen dramatically over the past 20 years, except when it came to the top 1 per cent.

Their earnings went up astronomically while all the other percentiles remained relatively the same.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has largely fizzled out now, since the group was kicked out of Zuccotti Park. But they continue to hold marches.

Last September, they marked the one-year anniversary of the movement by returning to Zuccotti Park and 185 people were arrested across the city that day.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2416853/Top-1percent-took-record-19-3percent-US-income-year--LARGEST-share-pre-tax-income-1927.html#ixzz2eWIZIMGK
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