2009 Federal Tax Stats: pretty much all bad (if you are the U.S. economy)...

According to David Cay Johnston at Reuters analyzing recent IRS data, total U.S. income in 2009 was down 15.2% in real terms from 2007. 

From the article:

The data showed an alarming drop in the number of taxpayers reporting any earnings from a job -- down by nearly 4.2 million from 2007 -- meaning every 33rd household that had work in 2007 had no work in 2009.

Johnston goes on to make the following observations based on the IRS data:

• 41.7% of 2009 tax returns paid no income tax.   
• the average tax rate was 11.4% (up from 10.5% in 2007),
• over 1,400 taxpayers earning over $1 million paid no income tax in 2009,
• taxpayers reporting income of $10 million or more was down 55% from 2007,
• 2 million fewer tax returns were filed (meaning that millions of Americans went from “working to having no earned income or so little they did not have to file”). 

[NB: Bold is mine]