Do the rich get richer?

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/the_transient_income_classes.html

Books that purport to teach people the "secrets of the rich" should take a course in Econometrics (Economic Statistics).

Quote:

Americans in the top one percent, like Americans in most income brackets, are not there permanently, despite being talked about and written about as if they are an enduring "class" -- especially by those who have overdosed on the magic formula of "race, class and gender," which has replaced thought in many intellectual circles.

At the highest income levels, people are especially likely to be transient at that level. Recent data from the Internal Revenue Service show that more than half the people who were in the top one percent in 1996 were no longer there in 2005.

Among the top one-hundredth of one percent, three-quarters of them were no longer there at the end of the decade.

These are not permanent classes but mostly people at current income levels reached by spikes in income that don't last.


Note:

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates seem to be up there for a very long time.