While I don't have the time to read the PSZ paper right now, I'll just point out that their introduction contradicts your post, that the results are starkly dif

While I don't have the time to read the PSZ paper right now, I'll just point out that their introduction contradicts your post, that the results are starkly different. I'll just quote verbatim from p 557: > Even after taxes and transfers, there has been close to zero growth for working-age adults in the bottom 50% of the distribution since 1980. The aggregate flow of individualized government transfers has increased,but these transfers are largely targeted to the elderly and the middle-class (individuals above the median and below the 90th percentile). Transfers that go to the bottom 50% of earners havenot been large enough to lift their incomes significantly." > "... our data show a sharp divergence in the growth experienced by the bottom 50% versus the rest of the economy. The average pretax income of the bottom 50% of adults has stagnated at about $16,000 per adult (in constant 2014 dollars ...) . As a result, the bottom 50% income share has collapsed from about 20% in 1980 to 12% in 2014. In the meantime, the average pretax income of top 1% adults rose from $420,000 to about $1.3 million, and their income share increased from about 12% in the early 1980s to 20% in 2014. The two groups have essentially switched their income shares, with eight points of national income transferred from the bottom 50% to the top 1%. The top 1% income share is now almost twice as large as the bottom 50% share, a group that is by definition 50 times more numerous. In 1980, top 1% adults earned on average 27 times more than bottom 50% adults before tax, while they earn 81 times more today. Second, government redistribution has offset only a smallfraction of the increase in pretax inequality."