This is not how inequality has developed, however. If you look at the changes of real in come between the top percentile income brackets vs. the median percenti

This is not how inequality has developed, however. If you look at the changes of real in come between the top percentile income brackets vs. the median percentile income bracket, top incomes have grown dramatically while median to lower incomes have stagnated. It's also challenging to just look at consumption and assume everyone is the same. Consumption levels might be stable, but the lower income brackets may be taking on more debt to finance that consumption. Additionally, as Pikketty points out, a lot of the spending/benefit gap between higher and lower incomes has emerged in categories like education and healthcare, which is not as easy to track by looking at people's houses or a consumption based standard of living.