Rich getting richer as Jackson Hole enters new ‘Gilded Age’

JACKSON HOLE, WYO – Heralding a new “Gilded Age,” CBS News Moneywatch journalist Aimee Picchi penned a story about an income inequality not seen in America since 1928—a year before the stock market crash that spiraled the country into the Great Depression.

Referring to a recent Economic Policy Institute study, Picchi found an alarming level of wealth disparity growing in many US cities and off the charts in some including Jackson, Wyo.

Some five states and 30 cities have already surpassed astounding thresholds where top earners have distanced themselves from the rest of the blue-collar pack by considerable margins.

The so-called ‘1928 peak’ has been surpassed in New York, Florida, Connecticut, Nevada and Wyoming. Wait, Wyoming?

As the cosmopolitan financial center of the world, New York is a given. Florida is where these New York tycoons go to retire and Connecticut is where their families live, so they make the list. Nevada is presumably fueled by Las Vegas as a magnet, a strong real estate market, and the friendliest tax climate for the corporations and the suits who CEO them.

Wyoming, as well, is at the top of the list for states with a business-friendly, tax averse attitude, so it’s no wonder the honey draws a few fat cats. But when it comes to income-earners, the conversation begins and ends in Teton County.

The top 1 percent is capturing a bigger share of income than ever before, according to the study’s co-author Mark Price. A family in the top 1 percent of income earners receives 26 times the income of a family in the bottom 99 percent.

Those lopsided statistics were also the norm in the Roaring Twenties, evened out during the ‘Golden Years’ following WWII, and began trending again since about 1973.

The new Gilded Age now includes five states where the 1 percent have exceeded 1928’s 23.9 percent share of income: