New York
NRO, William F. Buckley's deformed hellspawn
Fuck, why do I even bother.
Yeah yeah, you're the voice of reason taking time out to educate the youngsters only to be met with glib one-liners.
But look. Income inequality has been rising for roughly the last three decades. 1980 as a start point isn't some sort of straight-line-in-stochastic-dataset tricksiness. The early 80's recession didn't have a disproportionate effect on the income gap. You can start from 1983 to exclude it and you get the same picture.
The 70's were not a golden age for the middle class. Median wages look better from 1970 to 2006 not because it includes the 70's, but the booms of the mid-late 80's and 90's. And even then, once you factor in hours worked and overall growth rates, it's a pretty shockingly small slice of the pie going towards people in the middle of the distribution.
I'm not the hugest Bob Reich fan, but in this case he's got most of it pretty right. The top 1% are receiving proportionally more and more of the country's income, it's significant enough that it's impairing progress for other people, and it has been going on for a few decades now. This ain't a librul fever dream.