Taxes and Transfers in the National Tax System

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Ogtn: You can't decompose macra economic growth across social groups. The top one % average tax rates is a bit higher than the average macreconmic tax rate in the wesst, whichi ty%. But the difference is rerly small. That is now, altogether, the tax system in the ests is barely progressive. Wit its close to a flat tax, where everybody must pay 30% of their income.

Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his research on inequality and the distribution of income in the United States over the last 35 years. Zucman finds that there has been no change in income for the bottom half of the income distribution over this time period with large gains going to the top 1%. The conversation explores the robustness of this result to various assumptions and possible explanations for the findings.