MONEY

THE COST OF BEING POOR

ERIK ECKHOLM, NY TIMES - Drivers from low-income neighborhoods of New
York, Hartford and Baltimore, insuring identical cars and with the same
driving records as those from middle-class neighborhoods, paid $400 more
on average for a year's insurance. The poor are also the main customers
for appliances and furniture at "rent to own" stores, where payments are
stretched out at very high interest rates; in Wisconsin, a $200
television can end up costing $700.

Those were just two examples among several cited in a report Tuesday
showing that poor urban residents frequently pay hundreds if not
thousands of dollars a year in extra costs for everyday necessities. The
study said some of the disparities were due to real differences in the
cost of doing business in poor areas, some to predatory financial
practices and some to consumer ignorance.

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RISE OF THE SUPER-RICH

TERESA TRITCH, NY TIMES - Income inequality used to be about rich
versus poor, but now it's increasingly a matter of the ultra rich and
everyone else. The curious effect of the new divide is an economy that
appears to be charging ahead, until you realize that the most of the
people in it are being left in the dust. . . Figures show that from 2003
to 2004, the latest year for which there is data, the richest Americans
pulled far ahead of everyone else. In the space of that one year, real
average income for the top 1 percent of households - those making more
than $315,000 in 2004 - grew by nearly 17 percent. For the remaining 99
percent, the average gain was less than 3 percent. . .

Rich people are also being made richer, recent government data shows, by
strong returns on investment income. In 2003, the latest year for which
figures are available, the top 1 percent of households owned 57.5
percent of corporate wealth, generally dividends and capital gains, up
from 53.4 percent a year earlier.