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The Senate Finance Committee approved an $850 billion increase in the public debt limit, from $8.965 trillion to $9.815 trillion (Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate).

• FINANCE COMMITTEE APPROVES RESOLUTION TO RAISE DEBT LIMIT: Panel told by Treasury Department that Federal government will hit debt ceiling in early October. Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate. Max Baucus, Chairman. Press Release, 12-Sep-07.
• Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets Anthony Ryan: August 2007 Quarterly Refunding Statement. Press Release HP-515, 1-Aug-07.

• In 1998, the top 0.01% (P99.99 –100), 13,100 tax units (out of a total of 130,945,000 tax units), had an average income of $9,970,000.
• From 1917 to 1998, excluding capital gains:
  • The income share of the top 10% (P90 –100) followed a U-shaped curve: It peaked at 46.09% in 1923, bottomed at 31.55% in 1944, moved laterally to 31.85% in 1973, then climbed to 41.44% in 1998;
  • The income share of the top 0.01% (P99.99 –100) also followed a U-shaped curve: It peaked at 4.4% in 1916, bottomed at 0.5% in 1973, then climbed to 2.57% in 1998.
• The average compensation of the top 100 CEOs (in millions of 1999 dollars) increased from about $1.3 million in 1970 to almost $40 million in 1999. By contrast, the average wage of a full-time worker remained flat at less than $37,000. (Source: Forbes Annual Compensation surveys of CEOs in top 800 companies; Average wages of full-time employees are from National Income Accounts.)

See also: Louis Uchitelle. Age of Riches: The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age. NYT, 14-Jul-07. (Amanda Cox contributed to this article.)

• A serious recession in the U.S. can "significantly slow the world economy and transmit the recession into the rest of the world" (see "Dollar crash must be averted to sustain global economic growth – UN report." UN News, 30-May-07).
• Midyear update of the 2007 World Economic Situation and Prospects report.

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