This fascinating op-ed seriously complicates the inequality debate:
This is a stunning moment in economic history: At one time we worked hard so that someday we (or our children) wouldn't have to. Today, the more we earn, the more we work, since the opportunity cost of not working is all the greater (and since the higher we go, the more relatively deprived we feel). In other words, when we get a raise, instead of using that hard-won money to buy "the good life," we feel even more pressure to work since the shadow costs of not working are all the greater.
And:
America's income inequality ... has steadily increased since 1969. We typically think of this process as one in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Surely, that should, if anything, make upper income earners able to relax. But it turns out that the growing disparity is really between the middle and the top. If we divided the American population in half, we would find that those in the lower half have been pretty stable over the last few decades in terms of their incomes relative to one another. However, the top half has been stretching out like taffy. In fact, as we move up the ladder the rungs get spaced farther and farther apart. The result of this high and rising inequality is what I call an "economic red shift." Like the shift in the light spectrum caused by the galaxies rushing away, those Americans who are in the top half of the income distribution experience a sensation that, while they may be pulling away from the bottom half, they are also being left further and further behind by those just above them.
The rich really are different, in other words. They not only live in another country. They live in another galaxy. And it is extremely difficult for public policy to address the type of status anxiety Dalton Conley writes about in this piece.