Indeed, the only major change from the 80s to the 90s was that the richest group saw their share of total income grow slightly. We Americans traditionally resent and resist rigid class stratification. And from the 1940s through the 1970s, those in the vast middle increased their share of income and wealth to where the ideal was the reality. Disparities that existed at the start of the Great Depression in 1929 seemed a thing of the past. But in recent years there have been strong signals that something is changing.
Wealth inequality is back to Depression-era levels.
There is, of course, no universal standard for equality. If income were uniformly distributed, each 20 percent of the population would get 20 percent of the income. But, one need not be a card-carrying utopian to be alarmed at such a highly imperfect distribution of income. One does not have to advocate abolishing all differences in order to see that differences of too great a magnitude are not good for anyone in the long run. At the very least, then, the new income distribution data should serve as a baseline against which to gauge the years to come.