By most measures, and in many countries, income inequality has been increasing for a generation. Some people don’t care, so here’s another way to look at the problem: over the past 20 years, the pre-tax incomes of the poorest 99 per cent in the US grew by just 6.6 per cent after adjusting for inflation. That is a pathetic one-third of 1 per cent per year. Those who aren’t worried about increasing inequality should still be concerned at such widespread stagnation of living standards.

So what is the solution? Here is a modest proposal to fix inequality in four easy steps.

The first step is to be precise. Are we using the Gini coefficient or the share of the top 1 per cent to measure inequality? Wealth, consumption or income? Before taxes and benefits or after?