Replies

My income isn't "distributed" to me. I have to go out and earn it.

Nice pun. Obviously, the charts show not the income "redistributed" by the government, but the distribution of income across income groups using cumulative distribution function (CDF) which is a pretty typical statistical binomial distribution in the shape of the S-curve (not to be confused with the "growth S-curve").

In other words, to paraphrase, "it's not personal, just statistics." ;-)

What amazed me was the difference in "individual" and "family".

Why is that surprising? It would make sense that a median and average "individual" / single income would be much smaller than the one of the group income ("family" or "household," which includes single people and people living together but not married, i.e. filing individual income tax returns).

In addition, the "individuals" generally include [very] young and [very] old, who tend to have much lower incomes.

More interesting is the difference between "family" and "household" income, but it could be explained by inclusion of single households as well as usually poorer households with young unwed mothers and/or fathers.

Also, the charts show income but not necessarily wealth, as some wealthy people are afforded the flexibility of structuring their finances as not necessarily take certain "income" in that particular year, for tax or other considerations.

As you can see from [the steepness of] the curves, [depending on where you live] a lot more of the "families" and "households" should fall into the middle class (somewhere between 25%-30% and 90%-95%) than "individuals" (somewhere between 40%-50% and 90%-95%). It makes sense.

Well, the chart pretty well shows what we all know, that there is a big gap between wealthier and the rest.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me."

Ernest Hemingway: "Yes, they have more money."

Nice pun. Obviously, the charts show not the income "redistributed" by the government, but the distribution of income across income groups using cumulative distribution function (CDF).....

Not a "pun". I understand the number crunching. Unlike you, I also understand the motivation behind the careful choice of words used in order to achieve the desired reaction in the reader. Much has been written on the manipulation of thought and emotion through the use of certain words and phrases by Marx through Ayers. You may not think that this article was written to reinforce the "social issue" of income inequality. You'd be wrong.