New report shows Americans earning less

What helped to lift the total income was the increase in the number of people who earn in excess of $1 million. This demographic of taxpayers grew over 26% between 2000, when there were 239,685 taxpayers above the million mark, to 303,817 in 2005.

Most Americans however, are still bringing home far less than a million a year. According to the data, almost 50% of people are making under $30,000 a year and two-thirds of all workers report incomes under the $50,000 mark.

The article also discussed another touchy subject ... who exactly has benefited from tax cuts initiated under President George Bush. There are always going to be some who say that Bush has set up his tax cuts to favor the rich, while others (usually the rich) will argue that this is just nonsense. Well ... now we have some actual data:

Taxpayers who earn over $1 million a year received 62% of the savings from the reduced tax rates on long-term capital gains and dividends President Bush signed in 2003. Of the 134 million taxpayers, only 11,433 of those workers pulled in more than $10 million, but received 28% of the investment tax cut savings. The 90% of Americans who earn less than $100,000 a year received only 5.3% of the total savings

According to a poll taken by AOL, AOL users report that (as of the time of this post) 49% are making more than they were in 2000, 38% are making less, and 13% are roughly unchanged.

What about you? We want to hear from our Bloggingstocks readers. What is your experience in this? Are you bringing home more, less, or about the same?

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.