"...the driver of income inequality has been .... the inexorable, unmanageable force of corporate profits. The strongest companies have become ever-stronger, which has had the twin effects of boosting their stock prices and of raising their employees’ wages. This broad economic trend has driven the investment success of large-growth stocks. It also has led to the observed income inequality."
"In 1982, 90th percentile results for return on invested capital with nonfinancial S&P 500 companies was 22%, as opposed to 9% for the median and 6% for the 25th percentile. In 2014, those figures were 99%, 22%, and 6%, respectively."
"Ip cites a study by Jae Song of the Social Security Administration and four co-authors claiming that substantially all the reported growth in U.S. income inequality owes to the corporate effect. ... It is because the companies themselves have been relatively more rich and relatively more poor."
See:
http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=722378
