The Economic Policy Institute is sometimes referred to in the press as a “left-leaning organization,” which means that their research may be sound (it is) but their sympathies are on the side of equality and fairness for all people. I have often turned to their website for nonpartisan data, always carefully sourced, about economic trends.

In this post, EPI documents growing income inequality in the United States. The graphs show the enormous income growth of the top 1% since 1979, as compared to the income growth of the bottom 99%. In the period since the Great Recession of 2008, the top 1% have seen significant income growth, while the bottom 99% have seen stagnant income.

The average income of the top 1% is 30 times the average income for the other 99%.

Income inequality is near its historic high, which occurred right before the Great Depression.

The period when…