Salon.com > income

Incomes of bottom 90 percent grew $59 in 40 years

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:12:00 +0000

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Cay Johnston has highlighted yet more statistics that illuminate the spike in income inequality in the U.S. in recent decades. Flagging Johnston's analysis, HuffPo noted Monday, "Incomes for the bottom 90 percent of Americans only grew by $59 on average between 1966 and 2011 (when you adjust those incomes for inflation)... During the same period, the average income for the top 10 percent of Americans rose by $116,071."

Johnston offered a visual analogy for the disparity in a column for Tax Analysts last month:

Study: Wealth gap between whites and blacks has ballooned

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:12:00 +0000

A new Brandeis University social sciences study highlights that the wealth gap between white and black people has ballooned in recent decades. The study argues that "the dramatic gap in household wealth that now exists along racial lines in the United States... reflects policies and institutional practices that create different opportunities for whites and African-Americans."

The researchers assessed median household incomes and wealth (what you own minus what you owe) found that "there is no question that the difference in median wealth between America's white and African-American households has grown stunningly large. Via Brandeis' Institute on Assets and Social Policy:

The new study found the wealth gap almost tripled from 1984 to 2009, increasing from $85,000 to $236,500. The median net worth of white households in the study has grown to $265,000 over the 25-year period compared with just $28,500 for black households.

Meet NYC’s first-ever “microapartments”

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:32:00 +0000

Last summer, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a plan to build the city's first "microapartment" building: 55 rental units, all ranging between 250- to 370-square-feet, a size that was, until recently, illegal under current building code. Bloomberg held an open call for proposals for the fun-sized dwellings, and announced the winning design Tuesday morning.

A project called My Micro NY from a design team comprised of Monadnock Development, Actors Fund Housing Development Corp. and nArchitects beat out 33 other proposals to win the competition.

Construction at 335 East 27th Street will start by the end of this year, with move-ins slated for September 2015. In addition to being downright tiny, the building will be the first multi-family building in Manhattan to use prefab construction. The shipping container-esque prefab modules, which will be manufactured by Capsys at its Brooklyn Navy Yard factory, will snap together to form the building.