The third and fourth sections supply additional information on wealth, which complements the income data as a measure of how the most well-off Americans are doing, and poverty, which measures how the least well-off Americans are doing. The second provides an overview of the trends revealed in those key data sources. The first describes the commonly used sources and statistics on income and discusses their relative strengths and limitations in understanding trends in income and inequality. Within these broad trends, however, different data tell slightly different parts of the story, and no single data source is best for all purposes. The best survey data show that the share of wealth held by the top 1 percent rose from 30 percent in 1989 to 39 percent in 2016, while the share held by the bottom 90 percent fell from 33 percent to 23 percent.ĭata from a variety of sources contribute to this broad picture of strong growth and shared prosperity for the early postwar period, followed by slower growth and growing inequality since the 1970s. Wealth - the value of a household’s property and financial assets, minus the value of its debts - is much more highly concentrated than income.The concentration of income at the very top of the distribution rose to levels last seen nearly a century ago, during the “Roaring Twenties.”.Income growth for households in the middle and lower parts of the distribution slowed sharply, while incomes at the top continued to grow strongly.Beginning in the 1970s, economic growth slowed and the income gap widened. The gap between those high up the income ladder and those on the middle and lower rungs - while substantial - did not change much during this period.Incomes grew rapidly and at roughly the same rate up and down the income ladder, roughly doubling in inflation-adjusted terms between the late 1940s and early 1970s.The years from the end of World War II into the 1970s were ones of substantial economic growth and broadly shared prosperity.The broad facts of income inequality over the past seven decades are easily summarized:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |