Former Bain director: Common misperception that as rich gets richer, middle class shrinks

Ed Conard, former Bain Capital managing director, speaks to CNN’s Soledad O’Brien about Bain, business leaders as job creators, private equity and income inequality.

Conard says, “The distribution around the median income is very tight and hasn’t changed that much over time. And if you really made a comparison to say Europe, what you’d find is that our risk takers as represented by the payoff for the successful risk takers, which are the people that add up in the 1% if you will, just to use the slang, is much higher than it is in Europe and Japan. Our risk takers are producing way more innovation. Google, Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Apple, I mean the list goes on and on…. And If you look at our middle class, relative to Europe and Japan, I think at worst they’re the same, and if you really dig into the numbers I think you’ll see that they are substantially better.”

Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien airs weekday mornings from 7-9am ET on CNN.