Economic data show that a huge swath of low- and middle-income families, both in California and across the nation, are barely scraping by. By many measures, their living standards are stagnating or declining as the prices of such necessities as food, fuel and medicine rise faster than wages. Today, two liberal Washington research groups are set to issue reports on income trends in the 50 states showing that the gap between those at the bottom and middle of the income scale and those at the top is widening at an accelerating pace. In California, the poorest 20 percent of families saw their incomes rise 1.4 percent in the 2004-06 period compared with 1998-2000, after adjusting for inflation, according to the study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute.
See "Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer", Sam Zuckerman, San Francisco Chronicle, April 8, 2008