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Commentary - Sowell Economics
@sowelleconomics
Thomas Sowell on Paul Krugman’s favorite inequality talking point.
Krugman claimed that between 1979 and 2005, median household income rose only 13 percent while the top 0.1 percent rose nearly 300 percent. America, he said, is no longer a middle-class society.
Sowell’s response is immediate:
“All I have to hear is the word household income, and I know we’re not serious.”
Households are not the same size. The bottom 20 percent contain 39 million people. The top 20 percent contain 64 million. Households have been getting smaller over time. When a household drops from three working adults to two and still earns the same total money, that is not stagnation — it is a 50 percent rise in per capita income.
Per capita income always means one person. Household income is a political metric, not an economic one.
01:23 PM · August 24, 2026 · 162.4K views
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