The Left and their Progressive-Democratic Party like to bleat about this and to complain further about how it has only gotten worse.
They know better.
Here’s a little tidbit, from Phil Gramm’s and John Early’s op-ed in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal:
While the disparity in earned income has become more pronounced in the past 50 years, the actual inflation-adjusted income received by the bottom quintile, counting the value of all transfer payments received net of taxes paid, has risen by 300%. The top quintile has seen its after-tax income rise by only 213%. As government transfer payments to low-income households exploded, their labor-force participation collapsed, and the percentage of income in the bottom quintile coming from government payments rose above 90%.
That bit is disguised, as Gramm and Early point out, by the Census Bureau’s decision to not count taxes paid and Government transfers—welfare payments—paid when it measures income.
Of course the Left and their Party want to ignore actual facts—that’s demonstrated by that last part: [low-income household] labor-force participation collapsed, and the percentage of income in the bottom quintile coming from government payments rose above 90%.
Those are carefully created Government dependents—and votes collected in payment for those handouts.