headline - rich getting richer

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2011/12/05/rich-getting-richer-globally-study/

"According to the study, inequality among working Americans is up 25 percent since 1980, the year in which Ronald Reagan was elected president.

"After-tax income for the top 10 percent in America averages $114,000 a year, 15 times what it is for the bottom 10 percent. The richest 1 percent — who make an average $1.3 million — have climbed from receiving 8 percent to 18 percent of the nation’s income."

Can't tell exactly what the numbers are . . . family "live on" income? Are "street people" factored in? If not, the bottom number is more surprising. Families living on $800/month? I suppose a person living on SS in public housing could be in that range.

We (I) like to carp about welfare bums but it is the old people who are to proud to ask for help who starve and freeze that we should be worrying about. Several years ago an old lady in our congregation who was always clean and neat died . . . turned out her "cupboard was bare." No one knew she was living on the edge.