Michael Bennet: “I thank the Senator from New York. This gives a sense of the widening inequality that has happened. This is average…”

“I thank the Senator from New York. This gives a sense of the widening inequality that has happened. This is average income, which is different from median income. The amazing thing is, while middle-class income has been falling, and it fell throughout this 10 years, average income actually went up because a few people at the very top of the economy did incredibly well over this period of time. They have done incredibly well. This is the very top 1 percent of our earners who went from here to up here. The top 1 percent saw that, and here is everybody else. This red line is 90 percent of the people in America. Their average income was flat from 1967 to 2006. That is 90 percent of the people who live in the United States. It is hard to see how people can get ahead under circumstances like that. It is no wonder that we have these alarming numbers this week from the Census Bureau which show there are 46.2 million Americans now living in poverty. That is a 46-percent increase since 2000. I had to look to make sure I was reading that right. Since 2000, when 31 million people were in poverty, it has gone up to 46 million people in poverty today, and 22 percent of the children in the United States of America tonight are living in poverty. Over one-fifth of the children living in the United States tonight are living in poverty.…”