Nighttime Must Read: Paul Krugman: Recent History in One Chart

Paul Krugman:
Recent History in One Chart:
"A number of people have been putting up candidates...

...for chart of the year. For me, the big chart of 2014 was... from earlier work (pdf) by Branko Milanovic.... It shows income growth since 1988 by percentiles of the world income distribution... the surge by the global elite (the top 0.1, 0.01, etc. would be doing even better than his top 1), plus the dramatic rise of many but not all people in emerging markets. In between is what Branko suggests corresponds to the US lower-middle class, but what I’d say corresponds to advanced-country working classes in general, at least if you add post-2008 data with the effects of austerity. I’d call it the valley of despond..."