Income inequality in America: How much is there, really?

To me, this suggests there’s not enough income inequality in America. To be sure, the question of how much inequality is too much (or too little) is highly subjective. To most of us, the gap asserted by the census bureau (if it were accurate) feels like too much inequality. But without more analysis this is, in essence, an aesthetic judgment.

The much smaller gap found by Gramm and his co-authors feels preferable, aesthetically. But if it’s true that this more facially pleasing gap stems from policies that cause people not to work, then our aesthetic sense should perhaps give way to the more hard-headed view that the gap, in context, is too small. (These days, though, some consider valuing work to be a purely aesthetic judgment.)

[All systems have unequal outcomes. The real question should be whether that is the result of unjust systems or self-selecting factors of each individual. Socialist systems have far more of the former problem because they reject the individual. Moving farther toward redistributionism makes this problem worse, not better. — Ed]