The Trend in Incomes

Here's a link to a very interesting interactive graph on the trend in income distribution over the last 90 years. Comparisons between different points in time are very instructive. For example, between 1969 (the year I graduated from college) and 2008 (the last year in the data sample), the entire increase in average income went to the top 10% of earners. All of it! Try to convince yourself that the other 90% had nothing to do with the increase in average income, but that's what the results suggest--if you are naive enough to believe that economic rewards haven't become skewed to favor the already wealthy.