Who Gained in the Recession Recovery? The 1%

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The 1% not only control a vast amount of U.S. wealth, they also soaked up the majority of the stock market's post-crisis rebound thanks to the Federal Reserve.

A day after Fed governor Sarah Bloom Raskin said that lower interest rates aren't harming the finances of U.S. savers, new evidence suggests that benefits continue to be captured overwhelmingly by the top 1%.

On Friday, a study by University of California Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez found that families in the top 1% captured 93% of the real income gained in 2010, the first post-crisis year of economic recovery. "Such an uneven recovery can help explain the recent public demonstrations against inequality," wrote Saez of the results and the ensuing protests like the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Evidence from the recovery shows that monetary policy and trillions spent to bolster the U.S. economy aren't being transmitted in a way that will help Main Street catch up with the 1%, as Fed governors and economic agenda setters may want or hope for.

"Critics of the Federal Reserve's accommodative monetary policy are correct that the low level of interest rates represents a strain on households who rely on income from interest-bearing assets," Fed governor Raskin argued in a Thursday speech. But Raskin also noted that low interest rates are benefitting home and auto financings, while fueling growth in other areas if middle income finance. "For these other types of assets, rates of return depend primarily on the strength of the economy and how fast the economy is growing. Thus, these returns should be supported, over time, by the accommodative monetary policy that we have in place."

A screen of Bloomberg data shows that 476 of the 500 S&P components have gained value since this time three years ago, bolstered by the impact of low rates and added crisis-preventing fiscal and monetary programs.

Long-time S&P 500 retail favorites Ford, Priceline.com and Apple are top performers since in that time, notching 500%-plus gains.

Overall hotels giant Wyndham Worldwide is the top S&P performer in the past three years, notching an over 1000% stock gain that's put its stock to $44.28 a share. In 2011, the company's sales matched pre-recession levels of $4.1 billion as profits rose to $417 million. Meanwhile, Wyndham Worldwide continued a progressive boost to its quarterly dividend to 23 cents a share, after skipping a quarter of dividends in 2009.

Apple and Priceline.com have also given ordinary investors who know the companies' products strong stock returns.

Priceline.com, which is up 680% on a doubling of the company's profits and near doubling in sales to $4.3 billion in the past three years, counts retirement and wealth managers T. Rowe Price, Fidelity and Vanguard as its largest shareholders. Among hedge fund investors, Tiger Global and Lone Pine are among priceline.com's largest holders, with 2%-plus stakes.