{"id":14903,"date":"2014-01-07T14:37:44","date_gmt":"2014-01-07T19:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/5-facts-about-economic-inequality\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:26:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:26:04","slug":"5-facts-about-economic-inequality","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/01\/07\/5-facts-about-economic-inequality\/","title":{"rendered":"5 facts about economic inequality in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: For more recent data on this topic, see this post<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NoTzjxUfh1Q\nIssues of inequality seem poised to play a large role in the public discourse this year. President Obama is expected to use his Jan. 28 State of the Union speech to promote specific proposals<\/a> aimed at inequality, such as raising the federal minimum wage. Congressional Democrats reportedly see inequality as an issue that could help them<\/a> in this year’s midterm elections. And some Republicans, such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, have begun talking about creating “a new opportunity society in America” as a conservative approach to addressing persistent poverty.<\/p>\n\n

As the debate gears up, it’s important to understand some basic facts about how inequality is measured, the trends over time and how the U.S. compares globally. Here’s a “5 Facts” primer:<\/p>\n\n

By one measure, U.S. income inequality is the highest it’s been since 1928. <\/strong>In 1982, the highest-earning 1% of families received 10.8% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90% received 64.7%,\u00a0according to research by UC-Berkeley professor\u00a0Emmanuel Saez<\/a>. Three decades later, according to Saez’ preliminary estimates for 2012, the top 1% received 22.5% of pretax income, while the bottom 90%’s share had fallen to 49.6%.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

The U.S. is more unequal than most of its developed-world peers.<\/strong> According to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development<\/a>, the U.S. ranked 10th out of 31 OECD countries in income inequality based on “market incomes” — that is, before taking into account the redistributive effects of tax policies and income-transfer programs such as Social Security and unemployment insurance. After accounting for taxes and transfers, the U.S. had the second-highest level of inequality<\/a>, after Chile.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

The black-white income gap in the U.S. has persisted.<\/strong>\u00a0The difference in median household incomes between whites and blacks has grown from about $19,000 in 1967 to\u00a0roughly $27,000<\/a>\u00a0in 2011 (as measured in 2012 dollars). Median black household income was 59% of median white household income in 2011, up modestly from 55% in 1967; as recently as 2007, black income was 63% of white income.<\/p>\n\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n\n

A<\/strong>mericans are relatively unconcerned about the wide income gap between rich and poor<\/strong>.\u00a0Americans in the upper fifth of the income distribution earn 16.7 times as much as those in the lowest fifth — by far the widest such gap among the 10 advanced countries in the Pew Research Center’s 2013 global attitudes survey. Yet barely half<\/a> (47%) of Americans think the rich-poor gap is a very big problem. Among advanced countries, only Australians expressed a lower level of concern, but in Australia the top fifth earned just 2.7 times the income of the bottom fifth.<\/p>\n\n

W<\/strong>ealth inequality is even greater than income inequality.\u00a0<\/b>NYU economist Edward Wolff has\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that, while the highest-earning fifth of U.S. families earned 59.1% of all income, the\u00a0richest<\/em>\u00a0fifth held 88.9% of all wealth.<\/p>\n\n

\n

\"FT_13.12.13_econDistribution-310\"<\/a><\/figure><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With issues of economic inequality becoming more prominent, a “5 Facts” 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