Jim Pethokoukis admits that Occupy Wall Street won, and as a result we all lost:

By the time the demonstrations started, America had already elected a president whose top priority was to reduce high-end income inequality — i.e., the inequality between the wealthy and everyone else. If Obamacare — at its heart a “spread the wealth” redistribution scheme — and a call for ever-more tax hikes on the rich and on businesses aren’t proof enough, there’s also Barack Obama’s recent speech at Knox College. The enormous disparity between the 1 percent and the 99 percent, the president argued last month, “is not just morally wrong, it’s bad economics.”

But that financial divide is hardly America’s biggest challenge, economic or moral. Obama’s Knox College claim that the income of the top 1 percent surged over the past 30 years, while the income of the typical family “barely budged,” has been thoroughly debunked. While the rich did get a lot richer, real median household income grew by roughly 20 percent before taxes and government transfers, and by about 40 percent after. And, says a Washington Post fact check, “it’s inaccurate of Obama to suggest otherwise.”

Then there’s a blockbuster new study from economists Steven Kaplan of the University of Chicago and Joshua Rauh of Stanford University on why high-end inequality has increased so much the past three decades. Is it compliant corporate boards’ giving huge payouts to CEOs, or perhaps crony capitalism between Washington and Wall Street? Was it the Reagan and Bush tax cuts? Not so much, according to Kaplan and Rauh: “We believe that the US evidence on income and wealth shares for the top 1 percent is most consistent with a ‘superstar’-style explanation rooted in the importance of scale and skill-biased technological change.” Market forces — technology and globalization — allow a broad swath of folks — CEOs, bankers, lawyers, athletes — whose skills are in high demand “to expand the scale of their performance.” The NBA has a global TV audience today, so its superstars can earn more in salaries and endorsements. Growing international markets have greatly increased the size and value of U.S. companies and, not surprisingly, executive pay has risen, too. Technology allows top executives and financiers to manage larger organizations and asset pools.

Instead of fretting so much about income inequality at the high end, Obama should focus on expanding economic mobility. Primarily, this means policies to boost GDP growth, polices including education, tax, and regulation reform. The economy has grown at just 1.8 percent annually, adjusted for inflation, for the past decade, versus 3.3 percent a year since 1929. And a new JPMorgan research report, “U.S. Future Isn’t What It Used to Be,” says we had all better get used to the New Normal: “The long-run growth potential of the U.S. economy continues to slide lower, by our estimate, to around 1.75%; if realized this would be the lowest of the post-WWII era.” That’s a huge drop; it means the economy will double in 42 years instead of 22. …

But increasing absolute mobility — making sure kids end up more prosperous than their parents — is not enough. Solid research from the Equality of Opportunity Project shows big variation among U.S. cities in residents’ ability to rise above their birth stations thanks to factors — including family structure and geographic segregation — not directly linked to the macro economy. This suggests it’s wise to implement micropolicy ideas such as relocation vouchers for the long-term unemployed in high-unemployment areas and rolling back regulations that limit urban density. Ryan Avent, a reporter with The Economist, calculates that various urban land-use regulations cost the U.S. as much as half a percentage point per year in GDP growth. Business tax cuts and entitlement reform alone make for an incomplete conservative policy agenda.

America does have a 1 percent problem, just not the one Obama thinks it has.