I Didn't Say It

I caught this post from Greg Mankiw as soon as he posted it.  In it, he discusses that a Parade magazine article shows way too much distribution towards rich people.

The problem I found with it was that Greg cites:

By my count, about 14 percent of the people in Parade's sample earn more than $1 million a year. In the real world, the actual percentage is about 0.2 percent.

There's nothing with citing that.  My problem is that Greg opens himself up to everyone in the world asking, "Wait, why is there such a huge income gap between the top and the middle?"

Unfortunately, because I'm not a prominent economist I was frightened to actually publish any post regarding it.  Luckily, Justin Wolfers stepped out into the water for me and made my argument.

The lesson?  Families earning more than $1 million probably do represent close to 14 percent of total income, and maybe more.  By arguing that only 0.2 percent of families are this rich, Mankiw risks distracting his readers from the fact that increasing the taxes paid by the rich can be a big part of the solution to our fiscal woes.