THE ONE PERCENT AND THE REST

Turns out that 1% of the families have 20.1% of the income  The percentage reached a low in the 1970s and has been increasing rather rapidly in a zig-zag pattern ever since.  It seems strange to me that the low point in the 1% income compared to the rest occurred during the end of the Nixon, Ford and Carter years.  The bottom came in 1978 under Carter.  The top at 25% occurred in 1929 (no less).  Reagan started off the climb in percentage income of the wealthy with little change during Bush-41's one term then continued upward during the Clinton years.  The wealthy also did well during Obama's first term.

(click on the figure to enlarge)

http://www.epi.org/multimedia/unequal-states-of-america/
http://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality
http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf