INCOME INEQUALITY In America Is The Highest It's Been Since Census Started Tracking It
'Income inequality in America is the highest it’s been since census started tracking it, data shows.' In the midst of the nation’s longest economic expansion, the separation between rich and poor is at a five-decade high. Washington Post, Sept. 26, 2019.
Income inequality in the United States has hit its highest level since the Census Bureau started tracking it more than five decades ago, according to data released Thursday, even as the nation’s poverty and unemployment rates are at historic lows. The gulf is starkest in wealthy regions along both coasts such as New York, Connecticut, California and Washington, D.C., as well as in areas with widespread poverty, such as Puerto Rico and Louisiana. Equality was highest in Utah, Alaska and Iowa.
And while the nation is in the midst of its longest economic expansion, nine states saw spikes in inequality from 2017 to 2018: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia.
The Gini index measures wealth distribution across a population, with zero representing total equality and 1 representing total inequality, where all wealth is concentrated in a single household. The indicator has been rising steadily for several decades. When the Census Bureau began studying income inequality in 1967, the Gini index was 0.397. In 2018, it climbed to 0.485. By comparison, no European nation had a score greater than 0.38 last year.
The federal minimum wage has stood at $7.25 for more than a decade. That’s one of the biggest reasons the gap between the rich and poor is widening, said Brielle Bryan, an assistant professor of sociology at Rice University. “Inequality will go up as long as the people at the top of the tail are seeing their wealth increase,” Bryan said. “A booming economy means that people who have higher income and own capital are able to see continued higher returns on that.”
Recent economic gains by lower-income workers who have found jobs and benefited from minimum-wage increases in many states haven’t made up for the long-running trend of the wealthy seeing far larger income growth than middle- or lower-income earners...(~ Levels unseen since 1928)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/26/income-inequality-america-highest-its-been-since-census-started-tracking-it-data-show/
The gap between the haves and the have-nots grew in the US last year, census data show. Nine states saw spikes in that divide: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Kansas, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia.
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