Upwardly Mobile America?
22nd September 2008
Yes, the gains of the very rich have increased the fastest. But that is in part because of a statistical illusion. When poor people earn more over time, they move into the middle class or the upper class and are no longer classified as poor. Consider someone who was earning $20,000 a year and saw her income move to, say, $50,000 as she moved up the career ladder. That 150 percent gain in income isn’t apparent, because we no longer categorize her as poor. But every penny of income gain by a rich person is counted, because there is no higher income class she can move into.