Chart of the Day

The income share of the top 1% in the U.S. is near a record high and the trend lines show no real sign that the tendency of the rich to get richer in the United States, which has continued steadily since the early 1970s when it was near a record low, will abate anytime soon.

The previous peak was right before the 1929 stock crash and was driven by the Great Depression, followed by World War II, record post-World War II prosperity and the Baby Boom, and Cold War military conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.

The chart is from an article criticizing Piketty and Saez for overstating the top 1% share of income in economic statistics, via Marginal Revolution (link misplaced). But the long term trend of the two series seem to match very closely, so the criticism is largely immaterial for most purposes.