Months after taking taxpayer bailouts to prevent the economy from collapsing, the big banks on Wall Street now are preparing to shell out billions of dollars in bonuses for their executives and other employees.  Instead of getting bonuses, the executives who drove the economy over a cliff should be fired, Senator Bernie Sanders said.  Meanwhile, the gap between the super rich and the rest of us is widening. Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total U.S. payrolls in 2007 (the latest figures available), according to The Wall Street Journal.

“As this new study indicates, while Wall Street continues to pay out huge bonuses, the gap between the very rich and everyone else grows wider.  In the five years ending in 2007, earnings for top executives rose twice as high as for the average American worker.  Executives with six-figure salaries now make more than one-third of all pay in the U.S. We have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth. We have a moral obligation to address that growing gap,” said Sanders.

According to the Journal analysis, the pay of employees who receive more than the Social Security wage base -- now $106,800 -- increased by 78 percent over the past decade. The paper said Social Security Administration actuaries estimate removing the earnings ceiling could eliminate the trust fund's deficit altogether for the next 75 years. 

To read the Journal article on the growing pay gap, click here.

To read The Washington Post article on Wall Street bonuses, click here.