The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has updated their running series on inequality with new data from 2006. Here's the picture in aggregate:
This graph, it should be said, is even more impressive than it looks. Using percentages actually obscures the growth in inequality. It's easier, after all, to get large percentage changes on small absolute numbers. Increasing the salary of someone who makes $25,000 by 100% only requires another $25,000. If you make $725,000, however, a $25,000 raise is peanuts. It's three percent. When you see a graph showing that the top salaries increased by 256% and low-income salaries only increased by 11%, you're not seeing evidence that the rich did 23 times better than the poor in dollar terms. The actual gap, somewhat remarkably, is much, much wider.
This graph, it should be said, is even more impressive than it looks. Using percentages actually obscures the growth in inequality. It's easier, after all, to get large percentage changes on small absolute numbers. Increasing the salary of someone who makes $25,000 by 100% only requires another $25,000. If you make $725,000, however, a $25,000 raise is peanuts. It's three percent. When you see a graph showing that the top salaries increased by 256% and low-income salaries only increased by 11%, you're not seeing evidence that the rich did 23 times better than the poor in dollar terms. The actual gap, somewhat remarkably, is much, much wider. 
