New York is Number One in Income Inequality

The Empire State has the third highest GDP and the third highest population in the country. As far as its size is concerned, 26 states are larger.

But there is one thing that New York is number one in: income inequality.

A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that wealthy New Yorkers - the top five percent of income earners - take home almost 20 percent more than people at the bottom 20 percent. That's higher than anywhere else in the union.

Elizabeth McNichol is a senior fellow at the center and the author of the report,Concentrated Wealth Creating Significant Barriers to Economic Opportunity for Too Many New Yorkers. She said that income inequality isn't good for anyone. 

McNichol said, "Such inequality is both a barrier to Americans striving to provide for themselves and their families and a drag on future economic growth."

The report offers some policy perscriptions for lawmakers to consider. These include changes to tax policy that can reduce inequality such as an expansion of the estate tax and broadening the sales tax to include services mainly used by wealthy New Yorkers.