Poor children in the United States are poorer than the children in most other Western industrialized nations, as young Americans suffer the brunt of several trends toward greater economic inequality, a new study shows . . . The United States has the widest gap between rich and poor . . . the United States also has less generous social programs than the other 17 countries in the study.In 1950, fewer than 1 million American families earned as much as $60,000 in today's money. So rare was real wealth that the Census Bureau did not even keep numbers on incomes greater than that. As recently as 1967, only slightly more than 1 million American families earned more than $100,000 a year (in 1993 dollars) . . . But by 1980, 2.7 million lucky households counted incomes of more than $100,000. And by 1993, this group has doubled again, to 5.6 million households. And nearly 1 million American households were enjoying incomes over $200,000 . . . Nothing like this immense crowd of wealthy people has been seen in the history of the planet.
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