ABSTRACT
During the last two decades, inequality has been increasing; the income/ wealth gap between the rich and the poor has been steadily augmenting (Kawachi & Kennedy, 2002; Krugman, 2007; Piketty & Saez, 2003; Reich, 2007). Today’s income distribution statistics mirror the statistics of the “gilded age” (1877-1900) made infamous by the robber barons (Krugman, 2007, p. 16). The share of total income (excluding capital gains) for the highest ten percent
of the U.S. population was 44.3% in 2005, similar to the 1920 statistic of 43.6%. Moreover, the highest 1% of Americans earned approximately the same percentage of the nation’s total income in 2005 as in 1920, with both figures at roughly 17%. Piketty and Saez (2003, 2006), illustrate graphically (see Figure 1) how the level of the nation’s total income captured by the very rich has fluctuated over the century, peaking in the gilded age and at the present time.
