The government assisted in widening the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us, with income for the country’s top 1 percent soaring by 275 percent over the past 30 years, a new study finds.
About 30 percent of the expansion of the after-tax income gulf between the rich and not-so-rich between 1979 and 2007 was due to tax and budget policies becoming less redistributive, according to a recent paper from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, the huffington post reported. In addition, the boost in income for the top 1 percent and the top 0.01 percent of households is correlated with tax cuts, the study found.
In short: Policymakers’ decisions to slash taxes — especially on the rich — contributed to income inequality.
