Discussion by Paul Krugman on this issue:

There was a big positive movement in satisfaction with the country’s direction after 9/11, despite a deteriorating economy; there was another positive spike with the capture of Baghdad. After that, however, despite a genuinely improving economy, public perceptions slid steadily — reflecting, I believe, the sense of betrayal over the Iraq war, and also the Katrina disaster.

Excellent post by Prof. Perry on his blog. Discusses the result from a recent study which shows that contrary to popular belief, when the rich are getting richer, the poor are also benefiting.

All in all a great post. Numbers re summarized by the following table:

Income distribution for the quintiles

The reason can be summarized as:

“By leaving out additional sources of income – like fringe benefits or employer-provided health insurance – past studies have dramatically understated American households’ access to after-tax resources.” said Dr. Burkhauser. “What we found is that the rich did get richer over the last 30 years, but so did the middle class, the working class and the poorest.”

Nice initial comparison by Prof. Krugman
Taxes are compared in 2007 as a function of the GDP thus making the comparison fair. The original data source for this info is located here.

Based on a nice article from seeking alpha. They show the following plot from MorningStar

Thanks to wikipedia for this wonderful diagram:

Dollar valuation over time

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Nice discussion available here.