The bottom 90 percent of people got utterly hosed in the Great Recession

The bottom 90 percent of people got utterly hosed in the Great Recession

It's obvious by now that America's economy is not working as advertised. Previously I posted this now-infamous chart by Pavlina Tcherneva laying out the pre-tax distribution of income during postwar economic expansions, showing a steady deterioration in the position of the bottom 90 percent of people, and a corresponding advance of the top 10 percent.

Of course, that's a fairly narrow window of data, and Scott Winship quibbled mightily with the conclusions, arguing that if you take taxes and transfers into account, and exclude capital gains, and look at the full business cycle, then the chart isn't so alarming. But Tcherneva has responded herself, arguing that in one of his charts, Winship was inappropriately double counting years:

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.