Income Equality, Not Inequality, Is the Problem

Through Phil Gramm and John early

Aug. 29, 2022 12:04 p.m. ET

Contrary to popular belief, the most dramatic and consequential change in America’s income distribution over the past half-century is not rising income inequality, but extraordinary income growth equal rights to the bottom 60% of household earners.

Real government transfers to the bottom 20% of household earners increased by 269% between 1967 and 2017, while real incomes of middle-income households increased by just 154% over the same period. That has largely evened out the incomes of the bottom 60% of Americans. This government-created equality has caused the participation rate of working-age people in low-income households to plummet and sparked a populist realignment that is dissolving the coalition that has dominated American politics since the 1930s.