The 1 % in Flint

What's it take to be part of the 1 percent in Flint? According to this interactive income map of the United States, your household income would have to be at least $178,656. That amount would only place you in the top 8 percent in Los Angeles or the top 18 percent in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Rich Man, Poor Man: Charting the Income Gap

As these charts show all too clearly, not everyone is hurting equally as the country deals with the recession. (If it's not clear, click on the charts to enlarge them.) Of course, this is probably old news for anyone who has spent time in Flint, but it's worth repeating in an era of massive budget cuts.

The Great Recession and the slump that followed have triggered a jobs crisis that been making headlines since before President Obama was in office, and that will likely be with us for years," Zachary Roth reports. "But the American economy is also plagued by a less-noted, but just as serious, problem: Simply put, over the last 30 years, the gap between rich and poor has widened into a chasm."

Lucky for me, that time span pretty much covers my entire working life.