The bottom line

The income needed to enter the top 1 percent of U.S. taxpayers hit $515,371 in 2017, according to IRS data released this week. That’s up 7.2 percent from a year earlier and 33 percent since 2011, when Occupy Wall Street protesters rallied under the slogan “We are the 99 percent.”

Bloomberg.com

U.S. agricultural exports to China plunged 53 percent in 2018 after China imposed a 25 percent tariff on a variety of farm products; they fell another 8 percent through the first seven months of 2019.

Axios.com

Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity firm with a median salary of $170,929, was the highest-paying company in the U.S. in Glassdoor’s annual salary survey. It was followed by chipmaker Nvidia ($170,068) and Twitter ($162,852). Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences ($162,210), at No. 4, was the only nontech company in the top 10.

Fortune.com

Last year 485,200 workers participated in significant strikes, the highest number since 1986. The average strike duration was 15 days.

The opioid epidemic has cost the U.S. economy at least $631 billion since 2014, mostly in unrealized earnings of victims who died from the highly addictive painkillers. The price tag is expected to grow by as much as $214 billion in 2019.

The Washington Post

Disney films have accounted for 33.4 percent of the entire U.S. box office so far this year, raking in $2.7 billion in ticket sales. And Disney has yet to release three of its most-anticipated films, including the final chapter of the third Star Wars trilogy.

CNBC.com

The New York Times