U.S. income gap worst since 1928

And we all know what happened right after that — something called the Great Depression.

Chinese companies are able to take these manufacturing jobs from the U.S. and elsewhere for more reasons than simply having the lower wage costs of a developing country. Here’s how else China does it.

While total reported income in the US increased almost 9 per cent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 per cent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping 172 dollars, or 0.6 per cent.

According to the report, the gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than 1.1 million dollars each, an increase of more than 139,000 dollars, or about 14 percent.

The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than 100,000 dollars, also reached a level of income share not seen since 1928, according to the report.

The reasons are largely the same as 1928, also — increasing manipulation of various “financial instruments,” which are even more complicated today, thwarting the efforts of both federal regulators and surely, in some cases, the Internal Revenue Service, in keeping tabs on this.

Problem is, many people in that lower 90 percent are being fobbed off with modern America’s equivalent of “bread and circuses” — cheap made-in-China electronics.