That assumption is dead wrong. The share of national income going to every other group in society fell consistently across those two decades. Still, the top fifth of households' share of national wealth stood at 83.4 percent in 1998, compared to 81.3 percent in 1983. Every group in the bottom 80 percent of the population fell over the period, largely because of rising household debt. The bottom line is that many Americans are falling behind, not just compared to the wealthy, but compared to where they were a few decades ago.
Many more people know somebody who got into the entrepreneurial boom and succeeded.
This issue troubled the Founding Fathers, and has come to the fore at other times of rapid economic change. It will be an impossibility because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. It's hard to do, but it's the story that looks at the 'so-what' of income inequality. Merrill Goozner recently left the Chicago Tribune to teach business and economics journalism at New York University.