$79 Trillion Worth of Income Inequality
Optimist Economy
Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
4.9 • 829 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our own optimist economist Kathryn Anne Edwards worked on a research project several years ago to measure income inequality. Its massive headline number has taken on a life of its own in columns, talking points, memes. We explain how Kathryn and co-author Carter Price managed to answer this question: What would have happened to Americans’ incomes if they’d grown at the same rate as the U.S. economy overall? Spoiler alert: 90% of us would be a lot better off.
Read the working paper Kathryn co-wrote in 2020: Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 and Carter Price’s update going through 2023.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So I just want you to know I literally fell asleep on the couch last night with your report. |
| 0:07.3 | It was your idea to make this an entire episode and you can't even stay awake to read it. God, |
| 0:13.3 | that's cutting. |
| 0:19.9 | Hello, welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Catherine Ann Edwards, economist. |
| 0:23.7 | I'm Robin Rousey, and I'm an editor. |
| 0:25.9 | On this show, we believe the U.S. economy can be better, and we talk about how to get there |
| 0:29.6 | one problem and solution at a time. And we're back for season two. |
| 0:33.2 | We are back for season two. |
| 0:37.2 | Today we're going to talk about income inequality |
| 0:39.5 | and specifically an intention-grabbing number |
| 0:41.7 | that gets thrown around a lot, |
| 0:43.3 | which is the $79 trillion that would have gone to the bottom 90% of earners, |
| 0:48.7 | but instead went to the top 1% over the last 50 years. |
| 0:52.7 | But first, do we have any announcements? |
| 0:54.5 | Did anything happen while we were on hiatus? |
| 0:58.2 | A lot happened while we were on hiatus, actually. |
| 1:00.8 | But let's focus on where it counts. |
| 1:04.1 | Y'all, we opened a store and we sell hats and we'll have more hats. |
| 1:07.8 | That's a big deal. |
| 1:09.0 | Our hats were sold out. |
| 1:10.8 | We're ordering new ones. I was also so excited to run out of something. That's a big deal. Our hats were sold out. We're ordering new ones. |
| 1:11.8 | I was also so excited to run out of something. That was like such a win when we sold out |
... |
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