Also, he doesn't even hint at dealing with Correlation != Causation. Looking at the problems altogether, I get the sense this article wasn't written in good-faith, to just share some interesting facts. In fact, if I were to scroll down the entire way I might expect to see this fella worked for the Cato institute or something like it.
Unless I missed it, this article doesn't mention how rich the non-poorest people got in the same time frames. So the headline doesn't have much to do with the content.
"India’s average income has increased by 7.5 percent per year."
"A similar trend can be seen in Nigeria. Since the new millennium, gross domestic income per capita has increased by over 800 percent, from $270 to over $2,450."
Neither of those reflect what average working class folks make.
Do the math to average the yearly income where one person is making $1Billion a year and the other 1000 are making $1,000 a year. In this case the "average income" is a $1Million a year.
Reading the author's profile[1], since I'm left leaning and he's been associated with libertarian and right-wing circles, I'm just going to delete from my brain whatever he wrote. Maybe what he's written is true, but given his associations, I'm not going to give him the benefit of he doubt. If I cared more I'd try to debunk it, but well, I don't really care enough.
> Formerly, Alexander worked in Washington D.C. as a Research Associate in the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, a Foreign Policy Fellow at Young Voices, and an Associate at the Charles Koch Institute.
Well Cato is libertarian, Young Voices I've never heard of, but Charles Koch... oh geezus.
> Alexander’s works [...] have been featured in The Washington Times, ...
A reputable rag.. not!
> ..., The National Interest
Wikipedia: The National Interest (TNI) is an American bimonthly conservative international relations magazine edited by American journalist Jacob Heilbrunn and published by the Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., that was established by former U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1994. [...] Writing in Politico, journalist James Kirchick argued in 2016 while commenting on Donald Trump's Russian relationships that The National Interest and its parent company "are two of the most Kremlin-sympathetic institutions in the nation’s capital, even more so than the Carnegie Moscow Center."
What a sad and silly reply to an idea that conflicts with your own expressed biases. In essence saying: "I have my own emotionally charged ideological leanings, and because I see that this guy apparently has different ones, then none of his possible arguments matter. I've habituated my mind to shut down rational consideration when presented with contrary notions."... Amusingly, many on the left supposedly pride themselves on being more "rational" than conservatives.
For example:
> Since its economic liberalization reforms in 1991, India’s average income has increased by 7.5 percent per year.
This is great, but it doesn't speak to the article's claim. Who want's to bet that the richest 1% or 0.1% made a whole lot more than that?