The Left has adopted “income inequality” as this year’s euphemism to stir the pot of filled with its ongoing jealousy of, and vitriol toward, the wealthy. The way to solve the “problem” of the rich, according to the Left, is to have fewer of them. How sad that is. The profile of the universe of millionaires, as CNBC points out, is fascinating. Millionaires are your neighbors, not some dastardly group that seeks to deprive everyone else of a piece of the economic pie.
MYTH 3—The rich are a permanent club choking off opportunity for the rest. Of those who made $1 million or more, half were millionaire earners for only one year between 1999 and 2007. Only 6 percent were millionaire earners for the whole period.
Among the top 400 earners in America, 73 percent made the 400 list for only one year between 1992 and 2009. Only 15 percent made it more than two years.
As the IRS said in a June 2012 analysis of the dynamics of high earners, “The data reveal a mostly changing group of taxpayers over time.”
One of the most comprehensive studies on upward mobility—the odds of moving up or down the income ladder—shows that mobility hasn’t appreciably changed over the past 20 years even as inequality grew and fluctuated.
