Changing arguments in mid-stream does not invalidate my orrignal assertion. Regardless of whether moving positive or negative, the magnitude of change is greater the higher in the order the income line is. Exactly as the math would indicate. If incomes increase by the same percentage, the higher the original income, the greater the increase. If incomes decrease by the same percentage, the higher the income, the greater the decrease. The graph clearly illustrates my point.
I have no idea of the significance of your tabular numbers since you provide no source or frame of reference. They amount to gibberish, so I definately do not get the idea. 493000 what of what?
I didn't change arguments. I simply provided an alternative view of the same data that invalidated your assertion.
Let's do a little bit of sample calculation: In 2002, the average pretax income for the top 1% was $1,087,600, and the same value for the top 10% was $283,700.
Fast forward to 2007. Average income for the top 10% increased to $394,500. That's a 39.1% increase over the 5-year period. If your assertion was correct, the top 1% would have increased to $1,512,366. But, it actually increased to $1,873,000 -- a 72.2% increase, almost twice as much as the top 10%.
This example is directly from the first graph, and you are claiming the graph illustrates your point?
So, how does the second graph illustrate your error? In 2002, the top 1% had a 13.5% share of pretax income, and the top 10% had a 36.5% share of pretax income.
Again, fast forward to 2007: the top 1% had a 19.4% share of pretax income, while the top 10% had a 42.0% share. If both of them (and all the other income categories) had the same percentage increase, their shares would would remain the same. Total national income would increase, but the share percentages wouldn't change. The second graph would have straight lines from left to right. It doesn't, and relieves us of the need to do the above calculations repeatedly to illustrate the same point.
I have no idea of the significance of your tabular numbers since you provide no source or frame of reference. They amount to gibberish, so I definately do not get the idea. 493000 what of what?
Sorry, I meant to provide the link to the source data:
http://cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf
See the table at the bottom of page 7. And you can ignore the numbers that I posted earlier, because I messed up: they are average after-tax income from the table at the top of page 8. However, they do demonstrate the same phenomena.
The average pre-tax income is:
category 1979 2007 difference
20% $140,300 $264,700 89%
10% $182,800 $394,500 116%
5% $248,800 $611,200 146%
1% $550,000 $1,873,000 241%
These numbers match the endpoints of the top 4 lines on the first graph I posted. And if you are interested, the source data for the second graph is the bottom table on page 8 of the URL cited above.
A disclaimer: I didn't create the graphs. I just happened to find them on Wikimedia one day. But, I was already familiar with the source data, and was happy to see that someone had done the work.
The entire set of graphs and a copy of the original data is at: