Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer The $79 Trillion Price of Inequality (with Carter Price)
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Mar 24, 2026 Carter Price, Senior Mathematician at RAND and policy analysis professor, walks through where nearly $79 trillion that might have reached the bottom 90% went. He breaks down the methods behind the estimate and what income components were counted. The conversation covers new open-source budget and tax tools, links between inequality and deficits, and why long-term modeling matters.
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$79 Trillion Lost To Rising Inequality
- Rising inequality since 1975 transferred roughly $79 trillion away from the bottom 90%, costing them about $3–4 trillion per year by 2018–2024 figures.
- Carter Price's counterfactual compares actual income distribution to a constant-1975 share, showing the bottom 90% would have earned ~$40,000 more per worker in 2024.
Income Measure Is Pre Tax And Pre Redistribution
- The income figures reported are pre-tax and include wages plus rents, dividends, and interest, so they reflect pre-redistribution market outcomes.
- That framing isolates employer and capital income flows before government taxes or transfers alter take-home shares.
Tax Tool Maps The Entire Code And Forms
- RAND built a tax-code tool that maps ~1,900 sections and links 58 individual and 94 corporate IRS forms to trace how changes propagate across the system.
- That lets analysts see which taxpayers and industries are exposed to specific provisions rather than treating each policy in isolation.