The bottom 50% of income owners have no gains in income between 19 80 and 20 14. The social security data that are used to study these questions, where you can follow people over time, are very clear on that daselodectry of persistence in income over time. More generally, thereis no indication that there's a lot of mobility in or out of the bottom 50 %. There's no indication that peopl in the bottom 50%) are very likely to er move, say, to the top ten%. Are latteb, to thetop one percent? We know we need more research on that question.
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.