Discussion: Progressive Taxes

I've spent about a half-hour trying to track down the document I based that on, without much luck. I will vouch that it was an authentic doc downloaded from the census.gov site. Looking at what I can find, however, I'm starting to think I was looking at the wealth numbers rather than income.

Update: I still haven't found the exact doc that I remember working from. But I have determined which numbers are being referenced. It is the a measure of wealth, and not the census either. It was the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finance. You can find some relevant analysis here and here. Both cite numbers stating approx 1/3 of all wealth in the US is held by the wealthiest 1%, more than 1/3 is held by the next 9%, and the remaining ~1/3 is held by the remaining 90% of the people. It looks pretty much like the numbers I was using. How much that changes my conclusions, I'm not entirely certain, probably not much. But it does make the story that goes along with it a bit incongruous.