Historically, Wisconsin and the other Midwestern states have seen less concentration of wealth at the top. That was largely a reflection of the more rural populations and lower incomes overall.

But since 1979, the upper 1 percent in Wisconsin have realized 104 percent of the income growth in the state. Nationally, the top 1 percent grabbed 86 percent of the income growth over the same period, according to the new report.

“That indicates to me that although Wisconsin continues to have somewhat lower inequality than the nation as a whole, we’ve been gradually catching up inequality-wise,” says Jon Peacock of the Wisconsin Budget Project. “More importantly, even if we weren’t catching up to the national average, the story is that it’s getting worse here, as well as nationally.”

Data in the report comes from “The Increasingly Unequal States of America: Income Inequality by State, 1917 to 2011” written by Estelle Sommeiller and Mark Price and published by the Economic Policy Institute of Washington D.C.