Wealth inequality: also going up

The Washington Post:

Of late, James Pethokoukis, the American Enterprise Institute’s resident economics blogger, has been attempting to “close the case on the inequality myth.” Wednesday’s edition argues that it doesn’t really matter if income inequality has gone up because wealth inequality fell after World War II. I don’t agree with that, but put it aside for a moment.

The paper Pethokoukis quotes argues that “the first and perhaps most obvious factor is the creation and the development of the progressive income and estate tax.” I note this only because Pethokoukis and the American Enterprise Institute are loud, committed advocates for eliminating the estate tax and moving toward a less progressive tax code. They host events on the subject and praise plans for a flat tax that would make the tax code less progressive and put an end to “the death tax.” Over the last decade, they’ve been winning. And wealth inequality, predictably, has been rising.

Read the full story: The Washington Post