Consumption and Income Inequality in the U.S. Since the 1960s

Consumption and Income Inequality in the U.S. Since the 1960s
Author: Bruce D. Meyer
Publisher:
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2017
Genre: Consumption (Economics)
ISBN:

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Official income inequality statistics indicate a sharp rise in inequality over the past five decades. These statistics do not accurately reflect inequality because income is poorly measured, particularly in the tails of the distribution, and current income differs from permanent income, failing to capture the consumption paid for through borrowing and dissaving and the consumption of durables such as houses and cars. We examine income inequality between 1963 and 2014 using the Current Population Survey and consumption inequality between 1960 and 2014 using the Consumer Expenditure Survey. We construct improved measures of consumption, focusing on its well-measured components that are reported at a high and stable rate relative to national accounts. While overall income inequality (as measured by the 90/10 ratio) rose over the past five decades, the rise in overall consumption inequality was small. The patterns for the two measures differ by decade, and they moved in opposite directions after 2006. Income inequality rose in both the top and bottom halves of the distribution, but increases in consumption inequality are only evident in the top half. The differences are also concentrated in single parent families and single individuals. Although changing demographics can account for some of the changes in consumption inequality, they account for little of the changes in income inequality. Consumption smoothing cannot explain the differences between income and consumption at the very bottom, but the declining quality of income data can. Asset price changes likely account for some of the differences between the measures in recent years for the top half of the distribution.

Fifty Years of Growth in American Consumption, Income, and Wages

Fifty Years of Growth in American Consumption, Income, and Wages
Author: Bruce Sacerdote
Publisher:
Total Pages: 21
Release: 2017
Genre: Consumption (Economics)
ISBN:

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Despite the large increase in U.S. income inequality, consumption for families at the 25th and 50th percentiles of income has grown steadily over the time period 1960-2015. The number of cars per household with below median income has doubled since 1980 and the number of bedrooms per household has grown 10 percent despite decreases in household size. The finding of zero growth in American real wages since the 1970s is driven in part by the choice of the CPI-U as the price deflator; small biases in any price deflator compound over long periods of time. Using a different deflator such as the Personal Consumption Expenditures index (PCE) yields modest growth in real wages and in median household incomes throughout the time period. Accounting for the Hamilton (1998) and Costa (2001) estimates of CPI bias yields estimated wage growth of 1 percent per year during 1975-2015. Meaningful growth in consumption for below median income families has occurred even in a prolonged period of increasing income inequality, increasing consumption inequality and a decreasing share of national income accruing to labor.

United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality

United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality
Author: Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0197518206

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Over the past 75 years, household income in the United States has increased substantially. Still, by some measures, income inequality has increased as well. This has been the subject of contested public policy and political discourse. The question still stands: How can we better articulate the nuanced changes in American incomes? It is difficult to have conversations about income inequality without an agreed-upon set of terms, metrics, and concepts. United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality, edited by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, examines the trends in income growth in the United States and explores various measures of income, including market, post-tax, and post-transfer income. Within each chapter, distinguished experts explain how income and wealth--and the way we measure them--have changed in the United States, which demographic groups have benefited from these changes, and how mobility has changed over time and over generations. Specific chapters explain the roles of gender and race. The resulting book is relevant to modern international policy, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and addresses what can be done to increase economic mobility in the United States.

Unequal We Stand

Unequal We Stand
Author: Jonathan Heathcote
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 61
Release: 2010-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1437934919

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The authors conducted a systematic empirical study of cross-sectional inequality in the U.S., integrating data from various surveys. The authors follow the mapping suggested by the household budget constraint from individual wages to individual earnings, to household earnings, to disposable income, and, ultimately, to consumption and wealth. They document a continuous and sizable increase in wage inequality over the sample period. Changes in the distribution of hours worked sharpen the rise in earnings inequality before 1982, but mitigate its increase thereafter. Taxes and transfers compress the level of income inequality, especially at the bottom of the distribution, but have little effect on the overall trend. Charts and tables. This is a print-on-demand publication; it is not an original.

Consumption and Social Welfare

Consumption and Social Welfare
Author: Daniel T. Slesnick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2001
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0521497205

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Designed to be accessible to noneconomists, it relegates technical details to appendixes."--BOOK JACKET.

Global Income Inequality

Global Income Inequality
Author: Branko Milanovi?
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 35
Release: 2006
Genre: Equality
ISBN:

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"The paper presents a nontechnical summary of the current state of debate on the measurement and implications of global inequality (inequality between citizens of the world). It discusses the relationship between globalization and global inequality. And it shows why global inequality matters and proposes a scheme for global redistribution. "--World Bank web site.

Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures

Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures
Author: Christopher D. Carroll
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 517
Release: 2015-06-16
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022612665X

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Robust and reliable measures of consumer expenditures are essential for analyzing aggregate economic activity and for measuring differences in household circumstances. Many countries, including the United States, are embarking on ambitious projects to redesign surveys of consumer expenditures, with the goal of better capturing economic heterogeneity. This is an appropriate time to examine the way consumer expenditures are currently measured, and the challenges and opportunities that alternative approaches might present. Improving the Measurement of Consumer Expenditures begins with a comprehensive review of current methodologies for collecting consumer expenditure data. Subsequent chapters highlight the range of different objectives that expenditure surveys may satisfy, compare the data available from consumer expenditure surveys with that available from other sources, and describe how the United States’s current survey practices compare with those in other nations.

Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality

Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality
Author: Ms.Era Dabla-Norris
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 39
Release: 2015-06-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513547437

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This paper analyzes the extent of income inequality from a global perspective, its drivers, and what to do about it. The drivers of inequality vary widely amongst countries, with some common drivers being the skill premium associated with technical change and globalization, weakening protection for labor, and lack of financial inclusion in developing countries. We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down. This suggests that policies need to be country specific but should focus on raising the income share of the poor, and ensuring there is no hollowing out of the middle class. To tackle inequality, financial inclusion is imperative in emerging and developing countries while in advanced economies, policies should focus on raising human capital and skills and making tax systems more progressive.

The evolution of income, consumption, and leisure inequality in the US, 1980 - 2010

The evolution of income, consumption, and leisure inequality in the US, 1980 - 2010
Author: Orazio P. Attanasio
Publisher:
Total Pages: 43
Release: 2012
Genre: Consumption (Economics)
ISBN:

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Recent research has documented that income inequality in the United States has increased dramatically over the prior three decades. There has been less of a consensus, however, on whether the increase in income inequality was matched by an equally large increase in consumption inequality. Most researchers have studied this question using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) and some studies have suggested that the increase in consumption inequality has been modest. Unfortunately ,there is now mounting evidence that the CE is plagued by serious non-classical measurement error, which hinders the extent to which definitive conclusions can be made about the extent to which consumption inequality has evolved over the last three decades. In this paper, we use a variety of different techniques to overcome the measurement error problems with the CE. First, we use data from the diary component of the CE, focusing on categories where measurement error has been found to be less of an issue. Second, we explore inequality measures within the CE using the value of vehicles owned, a consumption component that is considered to be measured well. Third, we try to account directly for the non-classical measurement error of the CE by comparing the spending on luxuries (entertainment) relative to necessities (food). This is similar to the recent approach taken by Browning and Crossley (2009) and Aguiar and Bils (2011). Finally, we use expenditure data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to explore the dynamics of alternative measures of consumption inequality. All of our different methods yield similar results. We find that consumption inequality within the U.S. between 1980 and 2010 has increased by nearly the same amount as income inequality.

Does Income Inequality Lead to Consumption Equality?

Does Income Inequality Lead to Consumption Equality?
Author: Dirk Krueger
Publisher:
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2005
Genre: Consumption (Economics)
ISBN:

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"Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we first document that the recent increase in income inequality in the United States has not been accompanied by a corresponding rise in consumption inequality. Much of this divergence is due to different trends in within-group inequality, which has increased significantly for income but little for consumption. We then develop a simple framework that allows us to analytically characterize how within-group income inequality affects consumption inequality in a world in which agents can trade a full set of contingent consumption claims, subject to endogenous constraints emanating from the limited enforcement of intertemporal contracts (as in Kehoe and Levine, 1993). Finally, we quantitatively evaluate, in the context of a calibrated general equilibrium production economy, whether this setup, or alternatively a standard incomplete markets model (as in Aiyagari, 1994), can account for the documented stylized consumption inequality facts from the U.S.data"--Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis web site.