The Inequality Crisis Myth Built on Bad Research

Is income inequality really worse than ever, or are influential statistics overstating the problem? In this episode of Independent Conversations, Graham H. Walker sits down with economist Phillip W. Magness to examine the research behind America’s inequality debate, including Thomas Piketty’s famous “U-curve,” disputed calculations of how much the wealthy pay in taxes and the case for California’s proposed billionaire wealth tax. Together, they ask a basic but consequential question: before the government tries to fix an inequality crisis, how certain should we be that the data actually shows one?