Few serious scholars believe that middle class and poor households have seen the income growth experienced by the top in recent decades. Both the ubiquitous estimates from economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez and figures from the Congressional Budget Office show dramatic increases in the share of income received by the richest 1 percent of Americans. Attempts to deny that the top has pulled away generally have been wholly unpersuasive and in more than a few cases conducted with minimal regard for the truth of the matter, says Scott Winship, the Walter B. Wriston Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
