Progressivity

A while ago, Greg Mankiw made a simple point:

I just stumbled upon this rather interesting study (pdf) on the same subject. If you include local taxes and the public spending part as well, the picture looks like this:

The study notes that “overall, households in the bottom quintile receive $8.21 in government spending for every dollar of tax, while households in the third quintile receive $1.30, and households in the top quintile receive $0.41.“