Return of the Oligarchy!

The chart shows the income share of the Top 5% in the United States from 1913 to 2008. Generated from this excellent and free income database site. As you can see, the income share of the rich was pretty high before and during the Great Depression. Then it tanked after the signing of the New Deal in direct response to the depression. It stayed even during the better part of the New Deal Era when the American middle class has its greatest growth. Then it started climbing again back to the those old levels when the New Deal policies were slowly dismantled.