The growth of inequality was a side-effect of the result of the Bush Era's policies, with the beginning of Obama's term obviously being impacted entirely by the implosion that had begun under the previous administration. Obviously the wealthy were gonna score big in an economic collapse; they're the only ones who were in the position to take advantage of it.
This is even more obvious when you look at Obama's later years, where income growth across all income brackets resumed. Of course, all of those charts above conveniently cut off at 2011-2012.
But yes, voters are dumb and are while they were smart enough to punish the GOP for its failures in 06-08, they weren't smart enough to continue punishing them for the pain that ricocheted across the economy for years afterward. That failure on their part is why they're hurting so much today: had the GOP been completely shut out of government after 2010, they would have had no ability to obstruct reforms that would have lessened inequality and increased growth. Now the voters will get to feel that pain for a generation or more, since they handed the GOP a reapportionment cycle in 2010.
Whoever is in nominal power at any given point is who they blame, and there's very little that can be done to change that goldfish-like recollection/behavior.
That is actually not correct. Obama's 2nd term data (& there's some data there till 2015 odd) [& btw it takes time to analyze this data after a full term & it's not about leaving to make a distorted point] is as bad when it comes to income inequality, perhaps worse.
The data of Obama's 2nd term when it comes to income inequality is as bad, if not worse!
