Income Inequality in the United States

Following up on the recent filibuster by Bernie Sanders (Sen. VT-I) on the tax breaks given to the ultra-rich on inheritance and estate tax, I researched income inequality in the United States, and found some pretty interesting stuff on the income inequality here. Its really kinda sad. Some say that income inequality drives innovation, hard-work, and efficient work. I personally think it attributes to many sad factors in society, and the widespread idea that workers don't really deserve to share in national productivity gains because it's management that's really responsible for them.

Here is a graph on how much of the income the ultra-rich (the top 1% of all income earners) control.

Percent on the left, by year from 1917 to 2005, Top 1%(blue), top .1%(pink) and top .01%(yellow)

So basically, the 1920's could be comparable to the 1995-2008 era, a rather large increase of wealth into the hands of a small portion of the population. While the GDP per capita of the whole nation rose, it was normally by a large amount of wealth into less hands. The increase of wealth in the past few decades have been mostly into the hands of the few. This graph shows that since the Reagan era, there have mostly been gains in the wealthiest percent of the nation.

 

I don't know if the recent tax breaks, which lose potentially 700 billion in revenue by lowering estate taxes on the top .3 percent of our nation, can help this situation at all. 

What do you guys think?