The Rich Aren't Dispossessing the Rest

The Congressional Budget Office's just-published Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007 found an increasing concentration of income over that period, ranging from 275 percent income growth for the top 1 percent of households and 65 percent growth for the rest of the top 20 percent down to 18 percent growth for the lowest 20 percent of household incomes.

Left-liberals instantly used the CBO report to repeat their "the rich are getting richer at everyone else's expense" mantra. Representative Sander Levin (D-MI) called it "just the latest evidence of the alarming rise in income inequality in America," and the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson called the result "a nation starkly divided between haves and have-nots."

One obvious issue is whether a year during a housing bubble and stock boom provides valid information about inequality in the current, very different postbubble world.

More: The Rich Aren't Dispossessing the Rest - Gary Galles - Mises Daily