Yet Another Reason to Believe That Income Inequality Has Skyrocketed Recently

Here’s another reason I think the rise of income inequality is real. If income inequality had stayed about the same over the past few decades, then you’d expect wealth inequality to stay roughly the same too. But that’s not what’s happened:

Measurement of wealth has its own problems, but it doesn’t suffer from possible tax changes that might mask its actual value. And since this is presented as a multiple of median wealth, issues of the proper inflation rate don’t come into play. Nor does non-cash income.

In just three decades, the wealth of the top 1 percent has nearly tripled compared to the median. This is consistent with a considerable increase in income compared to the median. It is not consistent with the idea that the income of the top 1 percent hasn’t changed, but only seems like it has. One way or another, all this extra wealth came from real income.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate