I see people referring to the top marginal income tax rates of 91-92% in the Eisenhower era.

Here is what they fail to tell you:

Very few people paid anything close to those rates.

The 91-92% figure was a marginal rate on the last dollars of extremely high taxable income after deductions, exemptions, and income-shifting. The top 1% of taxpayers paid an average effective federal income-tax rate of about 17% in the 1950s.

Today, the top 1% pays an average effective federal income-tax rate of about 26%.

So the federal income-tax effective rate for the top 1% is substantially higher now than the ~17% of the 1950s, even though the statutory top rate is far lower.

People citing these Eisenhower marginal rates are failing to tell you the WHOLE story. This is yet another example of how our universities (with their exorbitant tuitions) are failing to adequately educate their students.

Next time some Communist DSA Democrat refers to the “90% Eisenhower tax rates”, you will know you are being intentionally mislead. Only a handful of suckers paid these ridiculously high marginal rates.

(Hat tip to Grok for some of this data.)