More than half of the benefits went to the top 10 percent of earners, who make over $170,000 a year. In fact, 38 percent of the dollar benefits went to the top 1 percent of earners (tax filers making over $645,000), who received tax breaks averaging over $100,000.
The bottom 60 percent of earners (making under $70,000 a year) received less than 20 percent of the benefits of these tax changes. And the tax cuts for the wealthy never trickled down to middle-class families: Inflation-adjusted median weekly earnings fell by 2.3 percent during the economic expansion from 2001Q4 to 2007Q4.
Fun fact: While real wages fell for most Americans, the top 1 percent of earners captured a whopping 65 percent of all income gains, leaving just 13 percent for the bottom 90 percent.
careful now. the left will be going after the middle class tax cuts next, since those tax cuts will very soon be applying to the new wealthy as he has more success in his war against wealth
A middle class person is probably earning around 50 000 per year. If he pays 13 000 in taxes and gets a 1% tax cut, he sees a total of $130 more over the year which is less than $3 a week. He sees nothing. A rich person has a taxable income of 5 000 000 and pays about 130 000 in taxes. Why so little? He has accountants and lawyers cheating the government. His 1% will buy him an extra bottle of whiskey each week but it is more likely that he will stash it somewhere that allows him to claim it as an expense and reduce his taxes even more.