" As we already know from the poverty numbers, the bottom fifth of families gained very little. The growth in their average incomes was less than 0.2 percent a year over the past forty-four years and, even before the recession, their real incomes were no higher than they had been in the late 1970s. Average incomes of the top fifth, by contrast, grew more quickly, at 1.6 percent a year, though not as quickly as those of the top 5 percent, whose average incomes grew at 2.1 percent a year. Once "

― Angus Deaton , The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality