For No One

➩ Individuals, not brackets

A classic Sowell piece, about how the rhetorical use of income brackets intentionally misleads. A fact that drives the point home:

A University of Michigan study showed that most of the working people who were in the bottom 20 percent of income earners in 1975 were also in the top 40 percent at some point by 1991. Only 5 percent of those in the bottom quintile in 1975 were still there in 1991, while 29 percent of them were now in the top quintile.

It’s really not at all shocking, when you think about it.