The New Gilded Age

Wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated among the super-rich in Illinois at the expense of the rest of the state. A proven way to reverse income inequality is to make it easier for people to form and join unions in their workplaces. Read More...  

'The New Gilded Age' - Illinois income inequality tops national average, but Lincoln among most equal U.S. cities

By Ted Cox

A new national study finds that the rich are getting richer and leaving everyone else behind.

The study by the Economic Policy Institute, called "The New Gilded Age," finds that the gap between the top earners and average income has widened in every state since the 1970s, with Illinois ahead of the national average.

Using what it claims is the same methodology employed by French economist Thomas Piketty in his landmark 2014 book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," the study found that the average salary of the top 1 percent of U.S. earners was $1.3 million in 2015, 26.3 times the average salary of everyone else: $50,000.

Illinois was one of eight states to top that disparity, but it was closest to the national average. In Illinois, the average income for the top 1 percent was $1.4 million, 27 times greater than the average salary for the other 99 percent: $52,000.

It took income of $421,000 to make the top 1 percent nationally, $456,000 in Illinois.

Lake County was among the top counties in the nation for what it takes to make the top 1 percent of residents, with a threshold of $994,000, 18th in the United States. The average income for the top 1 percent there was $3.1 million, 37.4 times greater than the average salary for the other 99 percent of $83,000.

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