Chart of the Day: Growth in High-Income Taxpayers

The Tax Foundation has conducted an interesting exercise: tracking the growth in the number of high-income tax payers (making more than $200,000 per year) between 1999 and 2009 and adjusting for growth in the number of taxpayers generally. North Dakota made the top of the list, presumably benefiting from the natural resource boom in the state, while Alaska ranked second. And No. 3? Why, that would be Virginia, followed by Maryland and Washington, D.C.

That should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following reports that Washington-region localities dominate the list of richest jurisdictions in the country when ranked by average household income. What the Tax Foundation data tells us is that a surge in the number of taxpayers making more than $200,000 a year — or “millionaires and billionaires,” as our president refers to them — accounts for much of that prosperity.

Moral of the story: Rent seeking is fast becoming the most lucrative economic activity in the United States. (Ritual aside: Yes, Groveton, I know you make your money in the private sector. But you are not like most Northern Virginians.)

— James A. Bacon