Which would be a problem if the economy were a zero-sum game, but it's not, so the share of wealth for the X percent isn't extremely meaningful. I don't see a

Which would be a problem if the economy were a zero-sum game, but it's not, so the share of wealth for the X percent isn't extremely meaningful. I don't see a reason to say it should be frozen in time at whatever level it was in 1978 or progress to a utopia where every single person earns the same (or where every X percentile of people owns exactly X percent of the wealth). This isn't to say that the current system is helping people, but pointing at this particular chart doesn't seem to do any justice to the idea of why life might be worse for the average US citizen. We could just as well reverse course and have a chart where income tends toward total "equality" and still make the world a living hell. I believe in our ability to do that.