If the egalitarians are right, then average happiness levels should be falling. But they aren’t.

What Really Buys Happiness?

by Arthur C. Brooks

Not income equality, but mobility and opportunity

The United States is a rich nation getting richer. According to the U.S. Census, between 1993 and 2003 the average inflation-adjusted income in the top quintile of American earners increased 22 percent. But prosperity didn’t end with the top earners: those in the middle quintile saw their incomes rise 17 percent, on average, while the bottom quintile enjoyed a 13 percent increase. This isn’t a short-term phenomenon, either. In the 30 years leading up to 2003, top-quintile earners saw their real incomes increase by two-thirds, versus a quarter for those in the middle quintile and a fifth among the bottom earners.

Reason to celebrate? Not according to those who worry about rising income inequality—the fact that the rich are getting richer faster than the poor are getting richer. The National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Survey (GSS) indicates that in 1973, the average family in the top quintile earned about ten times what the average bottom-quintile family earned. By 2003, that difference had grown to almost 15 times.


.................

Read more: www.city-journal.org