steady improvement over 50 years is nothing to be scoffed at
But there hasn't been a steady improvement over 50 years. Here's what the OECD says [1]: "According to the OECD income distribution database, income inequality among total population in the United States has steady increased from 1974 to 2010."
And here's what the US Census Bureau says about poverty in the United States [2]: "In the late 1950s, the poverty rate was approximately 22 percent, with just shy of 40 million Americans living in poverty. The rate declined steadily, reaching a low of 11.1 percent in 1973 and rising to a high of nearly 15 percent three times – in 1983, 1993 and 2011. However, the 46.2 million Americans in poverty in 2011 is the most ever recorded."
Why do you bring in the unequal distribution of newly created wealth when I'm talking about average people being better off decade over decade? Seriously, if I have a glass of water in front of me and you are thirsty, do you lament this unequal distribution of water? No, you ask your waiter, find a drinking fountain, or obtain water some way somehow. The people on the way to the top, and the ones there actually providing a net benefit to society, just figured out a way to create an unequal benefit for themselves and whomever was without whatever they were offering. They didn't look at any charts that told them their net wealth vs others was too high. If someone uses "free" public services to generate some of their wealth, then we should charge for those services and subsidize those who can't afford them. We can afford Subsidies because wealth is not a fixed pie! Let entrepreneurs create wealth and tax them in a way that promotes more wealth creation.
But there hasn't been a steady improvement over 50 years. Here's what the OECD says [1]: "According to the OECD income distribution database, income inequality among total population in the United States has steady increased from 1974 to 2010."
And here's what the US Census Bureau says about poverty in the United States [2]: "In the late 1950s, the poverty rate was approximately 22 percent, with just shy of 40 million Americans living in poverty. The rate declined steadily, reaching a low of 11.1 percent in 1973 and rising to a high of nearly 15 percent three times – in 1983, 1993 and 2011. However, the 46.2 million Americans in poverty in 2011 is the most ever recorded."
[1] http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/OECDIncomeDistributionDataReview...
[2] https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-s...