The study by the Congressional Budget Office, released this week, found that income has become dramatically concentrated, shifting heavily toward the top earners between 1979 and 2007.

And although incomes at all levels have risen some, they've skyrocketed for the very wealthiest of earners.

At the other end of the scale, Americans in the bottom fifth of earners saw their incomes increase by less than 20 percent across the nearly three decades. Incomes for those in the middle 60 percent climbed by less than 40 percent over the same span.

Things start to look especially good for the top fifth of earners, who saw their cash flow jump by 65 percent.

But it's among the top 1 percent where the growth was breathtaking. That contingent saw their incomes spike by 275 percent.

The CBO report revealed some other stark facts. While incomes did rise up and down the ladder, the explosive growth for the top 1 percent so vastly outweighed the expansion further down that the top 1 percent's share of the nation's total income more than doubled to just over 20 percent.

The hoarding at the top was so great that even after accounting for taxes, the "income received by the 20 percent of the population with the highest income exceeded the aftertax income of the remaining 80 percent," the CBO found.