Politics across the developed world has been boiling over with anger and frustration.

People are angry about the growing gap between the very rich and the poor. Inequality has been growing since the 1970s. Stagnant or dropping incomes for the bottom third along with exploding gains for the top 1% have sharpened the sense of unfairness.

It is not only the top 1%, however, who have made huge gains relative to the bottom third. It is the top 20%, or the upper middle class, who have done disproportionately well.

Richard Reeves tells us that the top fifth of the income distribution in the United States, with an average annual household income of $200,000 has seen its pretax income increase by 4 trillion since 1979, compared to just over 3 trillion for everyone else.

Class warfare is back, as Michael Lind told us in an earlier podcast, if it ever went away.

What explains this relentless growth in inequality across most of the developed world? And what are its consequences?

To help us answer these questions, Janice spoke with Richard Reeves, who recently wrote “pretending-youre-not-rich.html?_r=0">Stop Pretending You’re not Rich” in the New York Times. Richard Reeves is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of the new book, Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why that is a Problem, and What to do About It.