An Ongoing Pick-Up Internet Symposium on the 1%

An anchor post:

Paul Krugman: Why We Talk About the One Percent: “Many people in Washington, even those willing to concede that inequality has been rising rapidly, are uncomfortable talking about the famous 1 percent — perhaps because it sounds too populist, too much like an invitation to crowds with pitchforks. For a long time respectable discussion focused on the top 20 percent; today I see my colleague David Brooks talking about the top 5 percent. But framing the discussion in terms of some broader group is in this case deeply misleading…”

And fifteen contributions worth noting:

1. Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez: Income Inequality in the United States
2. Dean Baker: David Brooks’ Primitive Defense of the Rich
3. Arindrajit Dube: Minimum Wages and the Distribution of Family Incomes
4. Josh Barro: We Need A New Supply Side Economics
5. Matthew Yglesias: David Brooks’ made-up consensus to help the poor
6. David Cay Johnston: Willful Blindness Worsens Inequality
7. Josh Barro: David Brooks Is Wrong About Inequality
8. M.S.: Those crazy class-conscious leftists
9. Harold James: The policy response to the financial crisis is fueling income and wage inequality worldwide
10. Josh Barro: David Brooks Is Wrong About Inequality
11. Robert Kuttner: David Brooks’s Worst Column Ever
12. CBO: Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007
13. John Schmitt and Janelle Jones: Low-wage Workers Are Older and Better Educated than Ever
14. Shawn Fremstad: Robert Samuelson Blames “Failure” of War on Poverty on Women’s and Latino’s Insufficient Focus on Self-Improvement
15. David Brooks: The Inequality Problem