| I am not sure what you are driving at. Although some are stuck at the bottom, there is a good deal of mobility throughout the average person's life, and therefore the individual gains are greater than the quintile gains. Second, in a tight labor market, salaries are driven up in any skilled, and many semi- skilled positions, so that the differential between jobs that one gets as a teenager or apprentice, and "real jobs", can be sharp. Third, in a booming economy, those that take income to some extent through investment must, of necessity, outpace those who rely solely on wages and salaries. However, if you were to take the total value of benefits, including pension growth, the disparity would not be as acute. Finally, capitalism leads to some degree of income disparity. There is no way of determining what the proper degree is, and schemes to reduce disparity inevitably lead to economic inefficiency, so it is best to leave it alone. |
