[Glipseagrilia]

Not seeing how it's relevant. The trend is that income of people who make "a lot of money" (defined as the top 1% in this case) has grown much faster than people who don't (defined as the bottom 20% here). It doesn't matter that people move between the groups.

ETA: OK I suppose is relevant in one sense.. in that the headline of this thread is can be considered misleading. But that's more of a quibble to me. It would be nice if Sowell had cited his source instead of just a vague 'recent IRS data'. He looked at the 1% and saw that half of them were not there 10 years later. For the top 0.01% 3/4s of them were not there five years later.. but what if you expand it the other way? Say, look at the top 2% or 5%? I'd bet the 'churn' rate goes down a lot.

The reason it matters is that the argument assumes that the rich are getting richer. But that only has import if the rich are the same set of people. I.e., there's this set of people and they are doing better and better than this other set of people. But that analysis doesn't make sense if people are bouncing between the two groups. Actually, there's more than two groups.

Honestly, "doing well" in this country isn't hard. I'm not saying rich, but I am saying doing OK by yourself.

1) Finish high school at the very least.
2) Don't do drugs, especially hard drugs.
3) Stay out of jail.
4) Spend less than you make. Live below your means.
5) Show up on time and do what your boss tells you.

Except for really hard cases which deserve a social safety net, charity, etc., you live by these guidelines and you'll be fine economically.