"Over time a significant number of households move to higher or lower positions along the income distribution. As a result, public policies such as income taxation and income redistribution affect ‘classes' of people differently over each person's lifetime. In addition, income mobility muddies the picture of income inequality derived from a simple comparison of income quintiles from different years because such comparisons incorrectly implicitly assume that each income quintile contains the same households over time." St. Louis Federal Reserve.
Hoven's Index for May 18, 2011
In 2008, percent of all federal income taxes paid by:
The highest 0.2% of households: 24.1%
The highest 3.1% of households: 52.0%
The lowest 45.7%: 0.2%
Percent of households paying no federal income tax at all: 47%
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