1) You are right that many low skill workers get replaced by one high skill worker, but that's not what I'm talking about. Rather, I'm talking about the jobs

1) You are right that many low skill workers get replaced by one high skill worker, but that's not what I'm talking about. Rather, I'm talking about the jobs that were already high skill. I'm a programmer--these days I spend a lot less time dealing with the low level how, much more at the high level direction. Thus a given amount of effort produces a lot more user value. And, fundamentally, income reflects the value we create. Consider:When I was in school nobody had heard of a spell checker. Then some serious skill went into making a spell checker that would fit one disk. Now a spell checker of that level could be a class assignment. 2) Please, keep the step-up! Note that the rich pay more in inheritance tax than they gain from the step-up. And the step-up acts as a fire break against sins of the past. I had to deal with my mother's estate. Oops--she didn't really know what she was doing with financial matters, she had kept everything less than 7 years old. All the stuff dealing with the basis for her house was older than that. Fortunately that was back when there was a one-time capital gains exclusion on your house--I gave up on trying to figure it out, reported the basis at $0 and used the deduction. 3) They aren't worse compared to their parents at that point in their life.