WHILE economists continue to debate the importance of rising income inequality, it’s worth remembering just how the income distribution has changed over time. Preferably, if at all possible, through the use of an interactive chart. Happily, the Economic Policy Institute has taken data put together by economist and John Bates Clark award winner Emmanuel Saez and converted it into just such an interactively graphical form. Here’s a screenshot I took of the tool:
Obviously there’s more to inequality than income levels. The distribution of consumption has moved differently. Prices in a basket of goods purchased by the poor have risen less than in a basket of goods purchased by the rich. And so on. But really, all economics aside, is the above likely to be politically sustainable? Or healthy?
Former Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker, now at Kleiner Perkins, is famous for her amazing slideshow presentations about the future of the Internet, the rise of mobile computing, and new business models.
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