Are We on the Top 50 % of the United States?

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In 19 80, larry bird and magic johnson were the best basketball players. Now they make a lot more than the average person in the stands who was following them. People on wall street have benefited in a grotesque way from the willingness of the us Government to treat them with special favors. And i think that's a distortion that we should be upset about. But if we' just look at the underlying effectiveness of the economy...i don't find anything surprising or disturbing"

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.