U.s. Economy, Great Recession | featured news

From household wealth to spending at stores, many of the U.S. economy's vital signs have recovered from the damage done by the Great Recession. Home foreclosures and layoffs have dropped to pre-recession levels.

Technically, the economy has been in recovery for two years. But it turns out the rich have been doing most of the recovering. In 2010 -- the first full year since the end of the Great Recession -- virtually all of the income growth in America took place among the country's very wealthiest people, says an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. The top 1 percent of earners took in a full 93 percent of all the income gains that year, leaving the other 7 percent of gains to be sprinkled among the vast majority of society.