The Myth of American Inequality

The federal government significantly and intentionally misreports income distribution, sparking bad policies and political divisions.

That’s the argument former senator Phil Gramm and two other economists, Robert Ekelund and John Early, lay out in their compelling and essential new book, “The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate.”

Using 2017 figures as their reference, their sprawling and statistics-heavy work (blessedly) rests on one key observation: While the U.S. Census Bureau reports that the average income of the top 20% of American households that year was 16.7 times greater than...