I just finished reading one of the latest 20SomethingFinance.com ‘s posts, “ The Top 1% and Income Inequality in the U.S. ” In this article, G.E. Miller shares a quick, but very informative synopsis of Emmanuel Saez’s updated version of his paper, “ Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States. “

Emmanuel Saez, an award-winning economics professor at the University of California Berkeley, together with Thomas Piketty, a French economist (also award-winning), have been mapping income inequality for two decades. Their research of Internal Revenue Service archives has allowed them to stretch the data they’ve used all the way back to 1913. This latest version of “ Striking it Richer ” demonstrates in data and charts how the wealth has been distributed amongst the population from 1913-2012. It also presents data on how the top 10% represents a small share of the population but a very significant share of the increase in total income in recent history (1979-2012).

We’re curious to hear your thoughts on this topic. What do you think should happen? Fix it, ignore it? What does this mean for our future as a country?

Lisa Osborne Medlock
Office Administration
lisaosborne@mo-cpa.com