Rich Man, Poor Man

(Fox News) - The oft-heard dictum that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer — doesn't hold up in the harsh light of U.S. government statistics. The Treasury Department's new study on income mobility from 1996 to 2005 reveals that the median incomes of taxpayers who started out in the bottom 20 percent increased more than the incomes of those initially in higher groups.

In fact — the median incomes of all taxpayers increased by 24 percent. But the incomes of those in the top one-100th of one percent declined over the 10 year period.

And only 25 percent of the people who were in that elite group in 1996 — were still there in 2005. Meanwhile, roughly half of taxpayers who were in the bottom 20 percent in 1996 moved up to a higher income group within 10 years.