Here's some facsts about the us economy

• In 1928, the top 1% of families received 23.9% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90% received 50.7%. The Depression and World War II dramatically reshaped the nation’s income distribution: By 1944 the top 1%’s share was down to 11.3%, while the bottom 90% were receiving 67.5%

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/

• Federal spending on more than 80 low-income assistance programs reached $746 billion in 2011 and state spending on those programs brought the total to $1.03 trillion

http://www.forbes.com/sites/shahgilani/2013/09/27/income-inequality-is-whats-destroying-america/#b2f36956ac95

• University of California at Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez estimates that between 2009 and 2012, the top 1% captured 95% of total income growth
• The states in which all income growth between 2009 and 2012 accrued to the top 1% include Delaware, Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, North Carolina, Connecticut, Washington, Louisiana, California, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Massachusetts, Colorado, New York, Rhode Island, and Nevada.
• Data for individual states show that rising inequality's a pervasive trend: Between 2009 and 2012, in 39 states the top 1% captured between half and all income growth.

http://www.epi.org/publication/income-inequality-by-state-1917-to-2012/

• CEOs in 1965 made 24 times more than the average production worker, whereas in 2009 they made 185 times more.
• There's 750,000 Americans who are homeless on any given night, with 1 in 5 of them considered chronically homeless
• Only college graduates have experienced growth in median weekly earnings since 1979 (in real terms). High school dropouts have, by contrast, seen their real median weekly earnings decline by about 22%
• Throughout much of the 20th century, the average woman earned about 60% of what the average man earned. Starting in the late 1970s, there was a substantial increase in women’s relative earnings, with women coming to earn about 80% of what men earned
• In the US, 21% of all children are in poverty
• In 2007, 8.1 million children under 18 years old were without health insurance
• About 10% of full-time workers are in low-wage jobs, about 30% don't have health insurance, and about 40% don't have pensions
• The top 10% of households controlled 68.2% of the total wealth in 1983 and 73.1% of the total wealth in 2007
• The percentage of all wage and salary workers who are union members has declined from 24% in 1973 to 12.4% in 2008
• Employment fell by 3.1 million jobs during 2008, and by another 4.7 million jobs in 2009. The job losses in the 2007-09 recession are more severe than in all prior recessions
• 37% of those who are both young black males and high school dropouts are now in prison or jail, a rate that's more than 3 times higher than what prevailed in 1980

http://inequality.stanford.edu/publications/20-facts-about-us-inequality-everyone-should-know

• The US has an intergenerational earnings elasticity of about 0.5, which means that about 50% of a father’s earnings advantage or disadvantage will be passed on to the son
• http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/income-inequality/
• The average income of the richest 10% of the population's about 9 times that of the poorest 10% acrosss the OECD
• But on average, in OECD countries, women earn 16% less than men, and female top-earners are paid 21% less than their male counterparts
• http://www.oecd.org/social/inequality.htm
• In 81% of American counties, the median income, about $52,000, is less than it was 15 years ago. This is despite the fact that the economy has grown 83% in the past quarter-century and corporate profits have doubled. American workers produce twice the amount of goods and services as 25 years ago, but get less of the pie.
• The wealthiest 85 people on the planet have more money that the poorest 3.5 billion people combined
• The poorest half of the US owns 2.5% of the country’s wealth
• The super rich 0.01% of America, such as Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, take home a whopping 6% of the national income, earning around $23 million a year
• The top 1% of America owns 50% of investment assets (stocks, bonds, mutual funds). The poorest half of America owns just 0.5% of the investments.
• Since 1990, CEO compensation has increased by 300%. Corporate profits have doubled. The average worker's salary has increased 4%
• In 1980 CEOs earned 42 times as much asthe average worker
• The median wealth of people under 35 has dropped 68% since 1984. The median wealth of older Americans has increased 42%
• The average white American’s median wealth is 20 times higher ($113,000) than the average African American ($5,600) and 18 times the Hispanic American ($6,300)
• Since 1979, high school dropouts have seen median weekly income drop by 22%
• Union membership in the US is at an all-time low, about 11% of the workforce. In 1978, 40% of blue-collar workers were unionized
• 400 Americans have more wealth, $2 trillion, than half of all Americans combined. That's approximately the GDP of Russia
• In 1946, a child born into poverty had about a 50% chance of scaling the income ladder into the middle class. In 1980, the chances were 40%. A child born today has about a 33% chance
• 25 of the largest corporations in America in 2010 paid their CEOs more money than they paid in taxes that year
• In 1962, the 1% household median wealth was 125 times the average median wealth. In 2010 the divide was 288 times
• During the Great Recession, the average wealth of the 1% dropped about 16%. Meanwhile the wealth of the 99% dropped 47%
• Between 1979 and 2007, the wages of the top 1% rose 10 times more than the bottom 90%
• http://www.alternet.org/economy/35-mind-blowing-facts-about-inequality
• Currently, over 40 million Americans hold student debt and about 7 million of those have defaulted on these student debts. Translation: 7 million (or about 2% of the population of the US) have had their credit trashed as a result of their student loans and can have 25% in penalties added onto their total student loan debts. About 60% of employers run credit checks on applicants before hiring or promoting
• Since 1999, student debt has increased more than 500%. Since 2000, the average salary for young people has decreased by 10%
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kyle-mccarthy/10-fun-facts-about-student-loan-debt_b_4639044.html
• 43% of all American families spend more than they earn each year 
• 46% of all Americans carry a credit card balance from month to month
• There's more than 600 million active credit cards in the US
• For households that have credit card debt, the average amount of credit card debt's $15,799.
• 1 of every 7 Americans has at least 10 credit cards
• 45% of all new car loans being made today are for more than 6 years
• Approximately 70% of all car purchases in the US involve an auto loan.
• 45% of all auto loans are made to subprime borrowers
• Total home mortgage debt in the US is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago
• Mortgage debt as a percentage of GDP has more than tripled since 1955
• According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, approximately 8 million Americans are at least 1 month behind on their mortgage payments
• Historically, the percentage of residential mortgages in foreclosure in the US has tended to hover between 1 and 1.5%. Today, it's up around 4.5%
• In America today, approximately 2-3rds of all college students graduate with student loan debt

http://www.infowars.com/debt-slavery-30-facts-about-debt-in-america-that-will-blow-your-mind/

• In 2012, Afghanistan remained the top recipient of US economic and military assistance for the 5th year in a row. Prior to that, Iraq held the top spot from 2003-2007
• Almost half of US foreign assistance goes to 6 countries that are Washington’s allies in the campaigns against terror and drug trafficking
• http://borgenproject.org/10-facts-foreign-aid-united-states/
• US foreign assistance is 1% of the US federal budget.
• http://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/the-facts-on-foreign-aid-049180
• The IRS collects over $950 billion in taxes
• 7,000 millionaires didn’t pay any income tax in 2011
• California has the most millionaires. More than 40,000 Californians reported over $1 million in income. Vermont has the least: less than 300 millionaires
• More than half of returns–about 57%–are done by paid preparers

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/03/24/13-surprising-facts-about-your-taxes/#33f3b96c78af

• The US tax code's now 3.8 million words long. If you took all of William Shakespeare’s works and collected them together, the entire collection would be about 900,000 words long
• According to the National Taxpayers Union, US taxpayers spend more than 7.6 billion hours complying with federal tax requirements
• 75 years ago, the instructions for Form 1040 were 2 pages long.  Today, they're 189 pages long.
• There have been 4,428 changes to the tax code over the last decade
• The IRS spends $2.45 for every $100 that it collects in taxes
• The US is the only nation on the planet that tries to tax citizens on what they earn in foreign countries.
• According to Forbes, the 400 highest earning Americans pay an average federal income tax rate of 18%
• Warren Buffett had an effective tax rate of just 17.4% for 2010
• The top 20% of all income earners in the US pay approximately 86% of all federal income taxes
• The US has the highest corporate tax rate in the world (35%)
• The city of Zug, Switzerland has a population of 26,000 people but it's the headquarters for 30,000 companies.
• In 1950, corporate taxes accounted for about 30% of all federal revenue.  In 2012, corporate taxes will account for less than 7% of all federal revenue
• According to the IMF, a total of 18 trillion dollars is currently being hidden in offshore banks

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/24-outrageous-facts-about-taxes-in-the-united-states-that-will-blow-your-mind

• 143 million tax returns were filed with the IRS in 2010 and 85 million of those actually paid taxes

http://taxfoundation.org/article/tax-facts-journalists-and-taxpayers

• 6% of businesses file under the corporate tax code and they account for less than half of all business income, according to CRS.
• By contrast, in 1980, 17% of businesses paid the corporate tax and generated nearly 80% of business income.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/14/news/economy/corporate-taxes-inversion/

• Tax avoidance through offshore tax loopholes is a significant reason why corporations, which paid 1-3rd of federal revenues 60 years ago, now pay 1-10th of federal revenues.
• 26 profitable Fortune 500 firms paid no federal income taxes from 2008-2012. 111 large, profitable corporations paid 0 federal income taxes in at least 1 of those 5 years

http://www.americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-booklet/fact-sheet-offshore-corporate-tax-loopholes/