I'm not the parent commenter, but I would say that given the bottom 20% pays an effective rate of ~20%, an effective rate of ~34% for the top 1% is pretty low, relatively speaking.

But the effective rate gets much closer to 50% as your income goes higher and higher, no?

Within that 1%, you have people who make several hundred thousand dollars a year (I think they make up the majority of the 1%?), and their effective tax rate is closer to 34%. Whereas those who make millions a year, their effective rate is much higher, closer to 50%. Unless my math is off.

I doubt the people who make millions a year pay 50%. Those people tend to be good at structuring much of their income as capital gains, which is taxed much lower. Even tax on regular income tops out at about 43% including payroll taxes. It could go higher if you include other taxes such as sales taxes or state income taxes.

In Germany the curve is strange too.

When going from a low income to a medium income you get the steepest changes, then it flattens when you move into a high income.