By: Kathleen Elkins, CNBS
Income inequality in the United States continues to grow, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which used the latest available data to analyze how the top 1 percent and everyone else across the U.S. have fared between 1917 and 2015.
"In 2015, the top 1 percent of families in the U.S. earned, on average, 26.3 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent — an increase from 2013, when they earned 25.3 times as much," the EPI reports.
In some areas, the gap is even more severe. The most unequal metro in the U.S. happens to be Jackson, WY-ID, which spans Wyoming and Idaho. There, the 1 percent earn an astonishing 132 times more than everyone else.
That’s not to say the bottom 99 percent aren’t faring well in this metro: Their average income is $122,447, which is more than double the average income of the bottom 99 percent nationwide: $50,107. The gap is so huge because of how much the one-percenters in Jackson earn: $16.2 million.
Jackson may seem an unusual place to hold so much wealth, but it is home to the luxurious Jackson Hole ski resort and includes Teton County, which is by far the most unequal county in the U.S. The average annual income of the wealthiest 1 percent of the residents of Teton — a group that includes Dick Cheney and Wal-Mart heiress Christy Walton — is more than $22 million.
The second most unequal metro is Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, FL, where the 1 percent earn 90.1 times as much as the 99 percent…