http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/ie3.html
Notice the trends. Also, it hasn't changed significantly in the last several years despite two tax cuts.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p60-231.pdf In fact, the biggest year over year change? From 1992 to 1993 when the lowest 5th saw share drop .2%, second lowest .4%, 3rd .7%, and 4th .7%. While highest 5th went up 2% and top 5% went up 2.4%. Now what significant event happened in 1993? Clinton
raised income taxes.
Also note that the poverty rate, although up since the recession, is still much lower than its 1994 peak.
The income gap is a reflection of two things. One would be the stock market boom, which as mentioned in the original post on this thread, has resulted in higher incomes for the wealthy. So remind me, why do we want to penalize the rich simply because they're successful at investing? Another reason is the fact that the US has been slowly turning from a manufacturing economy (unskilled labor) to a service economy (skilled labor). So yes, the incomes of skilled workers has increased substantially versus that of unskilled workers. As it should be. Or is this somehow a bad thing? Should we be rewarding the unskilled more than the skilled?