A Treatise, in Thirteen Terms

Inequality in the United States
1977–2026

A term-by-term examination of thirteen presidential administrations, their policies, and the documented effect on economic inequality — scored against six core metrics and grounded in cited sources throughout.

Statement from the Progenitor of This Treatise

 

I am a retired IT person, 70 in age, one who has spent 25 unhappy years fixated on following the politics of my country, the United States. I am an unabashed liberal who makes no apologies for the same.

In Dec 2025 I decided at long last to make myself familiar with AI. Shortly thereafter the idea of using AI to do this treatise occurred to me. It rather seemed at the time, to my uninitiated naïvete, a perfect use case for this new technology — one that would make use of the non jaundiced eye of the unbiased AI Agent, to produce what ought to be an unimpeachable report.

So I began the painful excursion into the endeavor. Twice, with two different AI agents (ChatGPT, then CoPilot) I spent the better part of 2 days in the effort. Both times, for about 6 hours, things seemed to go very well, only to somewhat rapidly deteriorate into near gibberish. I learned the meaning and pain of “AI Drift” the hard way.

I waited about 6 months before making a third attempt, another day and half and the third time proved to be a success

This is the Result!

Start Here

The three main entry points into the treatise itself.

01Treatise Summary
Read What this treatise covers, how the six-metric scoring system and net scores work, a full 13-term score table, a term-by-term score chart, and the 48-year narrative arc in one page. Best starting point · opens in a new tab
02Term Index
Browse The full document index: all 13 presidential terms in chronological order, each linking to its own Inequality Trends and Policy Impact Detail documents, plus links to every supplementary page. Opens in a new tab
03The Policy Ledger
Explore An interactive, sortable database of all 135 individual policies found to carry meaningful weight on inequality — searchable and filterable by administration, direction (Wealthy / Common Man / Mixed), and impact level. Opens in a new tab

Supplementary Analysis

Cross-cutting materials that sit alongside the term-by-term documents.

04Methodology & Limitations
Read An honest accounting of how the scoring framework works, what it can and cannot show, and where a careful reader should apply extra skepticism — including why a scoring system was used at all. Opens in a new tab
05Congressional Control
Reference Which party controlled the House, the Senate, and the presidency during each term — context for which policies could actually pass, and why. Opens in a new tab
06The Racial Wealth Gap
Reference Median household wealth by race, term by term, using Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data — a dimension the term documents mention in passing but never track on their own. Opens in a new tab
07International Context
Reference How the U.S. inequality trend compares to other wealthy democracies over the same 48 years — is the American story unique, or part of a broader pattern? Opens in a new tab
08Glossary
Reference Plain-language definitions of the Gini coefficient, income share, labor share, and other recurring metrics and terms used throughout the treatise. Opens in a new tab
09Master Bibliography
Reference Every source cited across all 13 terms, consolidated and grouped by publisher — 117 citations across 40 sources, for fact-checking or further reading. Opens in a new tab

Data & Downloads

The underlying data and a single-file version of the whole treatise.

10Policy Database (Excel)
Download The spreadsheet behind the Policy Ledger: all 135 qualifying policies with direction and impact ratings, a term-by-term net-score summary, and quick tally counts, across three sheets. Downloads to your device
11Bound Volume (PDF)
Download All 26 term documents merged into a single 93-page PDF, with a cover page, a page-accurate table of contents, and nested bookmarks for every term — for printing or offline reading. Opens in your browser's PDF viewer

Process & Provenance

How this treatise was actually built, in the interest of full transparency.

12Remarks During Creation
Read The AI's own running commentary throughout the project's construction — the reasoning behind template choices, scoring judgment calls, and caveats offered along the way. Opens in a new tab
13Error-Checking Remarks
Read The record of the final validation pass: a mechanical consistency audit across every document plus a fact-check review, including two real citation errors that were found and corrected. Opens in a new tab
14Original Query (7/4/26)
Download The original request that started this project, submitted verbatim on July 4, 2026 — the raw starting point before any of the above existed. Downloads or opens as plain text