The recent rise in income inequality in the US has received considerable attention in policy debates. This article discusses individual income inequality trends. Furthermore, the article documents periods characterized by a decline in real income for lower income groups. The authors show that this increase in inequality is explained mainly by an increase in inequality at the top of the income distribution. Significant increases in inequality within lower incomes are only observed during the 1980s. They also explain that welfare inequality may have increased less than income inequality. Finally, they show that the recent period of increasing inequality followed a period of decreasing inequality since World War I, which in turn followed a period of increasing inequality in the 19th century.