Obama Has Redistributed More Wealth To The Bottom 99% Through The Tax Code Than Any Administration Since At Least 1960

Wall Street Journal, The White House Says Its Policies Slashed the Income Gap:

One of the big criticisms of the current economic expansion—and also the one that ran from 2001 through 2007—is that most of the gains accrued to the best off, unleashing a populist groundswell in the presidential election campaign.

The White House lays out the case in a new report that the Obama administration’s policies have done more than any administration in the last half-century to reduce inequality [The Economic Record of the Obama Administration: Progress Reducing Inequality] ...

The upshot is these changes in tax and health-care policy will increase the share of after-tax income by the poorest fifth of households by 0.6 percentage point while reducing the share of the wealthiest 1% of households by 1.2 percentage points.

Taken together, the administration says that it has done more to redistribute wealth to the bottom 99% of families through tax-code changes than any administration since at least 1960. The share of after-tax income from the poorest fifth of households fell by nearly 25% from 1979 to 2007, and the White House says its tax and health-care changes have reversed one-third of that decline.

• Washington Examiner, White House Claims 'Historic' Lowering of Income Inequality
• Washington Post op-ed: How Obama Has Narrowed the Income Inequality Gap, by Jason Furman (Chair, White House Council of Economic Advisers)