Echidne: The Gini Coefficient and the Lorenz Curve

These are measures that economists use for income inequality in a society, but I'm not going to talk about them at. Just put them in the headline to scare you. Instead, I'm going to talk about the income inequality itself which really should scare you. Krugman gives us some worrisome data in his latest column where he first debunks the myth that it's education which makes some Americans earn so much than others:

So who are the winners from rising inequality? It's not the top 20 percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that.