23 October 2008

The Rising Tide Didn't Lift All Boats

Steam Powered Opinions passes along this tidbit:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I followed the chain of links to the original article (PDF) at the Center for American Progress. The implication of the article seems to be that income inequality has greatly increased during the Bush administration.

I found a more rigorous paper (also PDF) at Bard College that paints a less dramatic picture. According to the paper, income inequality surged from 1997 to 2000, but actually fell from 2000 to 2003.

I'm no economist, but I get the sense that this chart doesn't tell the whole story. Also, I'd be interested to see the effect of the current market crash.

Off Colfax said...

So in other words...

The bottom 90% saw an annual increase of approximately half the size of our economic stimulus package earlier this year.

Absurd.