The left says current levels of income inequality echo the late 1920s and the Gilded Age. They?ve zeroed in on the richest 1%, citing Census Bureau data showing these top earners ?grabbing? more income than the bottom 90%.
But the census stats are misleading.
For one, they are a snapshot of income distribution at a single point in time. Yet income is not static. It changes over time. Low-paying jobs from early adulthood give way to better-paying jobs later in life.
And income groups in America are not fixed. There?s no caste system here, really no such thing even as a middle ?class.? The poor aren?t stuck in poverty. And the rich don?t enjoy lifetime membership in an exclusive club.
A 2007 Treasury Department study bears this out. Nearly 58% of U.S. households in the lowest-income quintile in 1996 moved to a higher level by 2005. The reverse also held true. Of those households that were in the top 1% in income in 1996, more than 57% dropped to a lower-income group by 2005.
Every day in America, the poor join the ranks of the middle, the middle join the ranks of the rich, and the rich fall out of comfort.
So even if income inequality is increasing, it does not mean income mobility is decreasing. There is still a great deal of movement in and out of the richest and poorest groups in America.
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