Last week I noted that I didn’t think a new paper from two respected economists published in a respected journal showing no increase in post-tax and post-transfers income inequality in the U.S. over the past 60 years would change the minds of those who find it convenient to claim that inequality has increased dramatically.

That didn’t take long. The Economist has a piece today in which Thomas Piketty, who has made an entire career out of calling for soak-the-rich-type policies to address growing inequality and whose research is being debunked by this new paper and others, calls the paper “inequality denial.” He also goes on to say that inequality denial is just like climate denial.

So take that, Auten and Splinter, with your careful peer-reviewed work!

Never mind that saying inequality isn’t soaring isn’t the same as saying that inequality doesn’t exist. Never mind either that those in favor of the welfare state should be happy to get confirmation that giving money to people lifts their income. That, of course, is a different thing than arguing that this is the best way to achieve that goal. It also doesn’t settle questions such as whether we should be concerned about inequality in the first place.

In any case, Piketty’s response is typical of someone whose work has been unchallenged for years because his message made sense to many people no matter how sloppy that work has been.