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.