IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16874.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Declining Earnings Inequality, Rising Income Inequality: What Explains Discordant Inequality Trends in the United States?

Author

Listed:
  • Lehner, Lukas

    (University of Oxford)

  • Parolin, Zachary

    (Bocconi University)

  • Wilmers, Nathan

    (MIT)

Abstract

From 2010 to 2019, personal earnings inequality declined in the United States (U.S.) for the first time in decades, yet household income inequality continued to increase. Discordance between trends in personal earnings inequality and household income inequality was greater than in any other decade in recent U.S. history. We introduce a framework to decompose differences in inequality trends. We find that 46% of the 2010-2019 discordance is due to the changing household composition of workers. Specifically, a larger share of young workers are living with their parents, thus combining low personal earnings with high household incomes. The remaining 54% of discordance stems from inequality-increasing shifts in non-labor income (private income, taxes, and transfers). Despite the rare decline in U.S. earnings inequality, household income inequality increased due to changes in workers' household composition, increases in private income among higher-earning households, and the declining redistributive effect of government income transfers.

Suggested Citation

  • Lehner, Lukas & Parolin, Zachary & Wilmers, Nathan, 2024. "Declining Earnings Inequality, Rising Income Inequality: What Explains Discordant Inequality Trends in the United States?," IZA Discussion Papers 16874, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16874
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16874.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Achim Ahrens & Christian B. Hansen & Mark E. Schaffer, 2020. "lassopack: Model selection and prediction with regularized regression in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(1), pages 176-235, March.
    2. Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992. "Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(1), pages 35-78.
    3. Hilary W. Hoynes & Ankur J. Patel, 2018. "Effective Policy for Reducing Poverty and Inequality?: The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Distribution of Income," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 53(4), pages 859-890.
    4. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 553-609.
    5. David Autor & Arindrajit Dube & Annie McGrew, 2023. "The Unexpected Compression: Competition at Work in the Low Wage Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 31010, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sergio Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Unconditional Quantile Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 953-973, May.
    7. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    8. Hilary Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Douglas Almond, 2016. "Long-Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(4), pages 903-934, April.
    9. Sergio P. Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2018. "Decomposing Wage Distributions Using Recentered Influence Function Regressions," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-40, May.
    10. Nikolas Mittag, 2019. "Correcting for Misreporting of Government Benefits," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 142-164, May.
    11. Fernando Rios-Avila, 2020. "Recentered influence functions (RIFs) in Stata: RIF regression and RIF decomposition," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(1), pages 51-94, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giangregorio Luca & Fana Marta, 2021. "The structure of the labour market and wage inequality using RIF-OLS: the Italian case," JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2021-11, Joint Research Centre.
    2. Koomen, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2022. "Occupational tasks and wage inequality in West Germany: A decomposition analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Henry S Farber & Daniel Herbst & Ilyana Kuziemko & Suresh Naidu, 2021. "Unions and Inequality over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(3), pages 1325-1385.
    4. Verdugo, Gregory, 2014. "The great compression of the French wage structure, 1969–2008," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 131-144.
    5. Joseph G. Altonji & Prashant Bharadwaj & Fabian Lange, 2012. "Changes in the Characteristics of American Youth: Implications for Adult Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 783-828.
    6. Melanie Jones & Ezgi Kaya, 2024. "Performance‐related pay and the UK gender pay gap," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(4), pages 512-529, October.
    7. Pallab Ghosh & Jae Lee, 2016. "Decomposition of Changes in Korean Wage Inequality, 1998–2007," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 37(1), pages 1-28, March.
    8. Fernández, Manuel & Messina, Julián, 2018. "Skill premium, labor supply, and changes in the structure of wages in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 555-573.
    9. Christian Manuel Posso, 2010. "Desigualdad salarial en Colombia 1984-2005: cambios en la composición del mercado laboral y retornos a la educación post-secundaria," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, December.
    10. Cheng, Zhiming, 2021. "Education and consumption: Evidence from migrants in Chinese cities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 206-215.
    11. Michael Chletsos & Stelios Roupakias, 2020. "Education and wage inequality before and during the fiscal crisis: A quantile regression analysis for Greece 2006–2016," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 1333-1364, November.
    12. Christopher F. Baum & Hans Lööf & Andreas Stephan & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2024. "Estimating the Wage Premia of Refugee Immigrants: Lessons from Sweden," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 77(4), pages 562-597, August.
    13. Patrick Bennett & Aline Butikofer & Kjell G. Salvanes & Darina Steskal, 2022. "Changes in Urban Wages, Jobs, and Workers from 1958-2017," Working Papers 202214, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    14. Hope Bodenschatz & Gerald Eric Daniels Jr. & Jeffrey P. Thompson, 2023. "Decomposing Lifetime-Earnings Differences between White, Black, and Hispanic Families," Working Papers 23-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    15. Mario Reinhold, 2016. "On the Link between Job Polarisation and Wage Inequality - A regional approach for Germany," ERSA conference papers ersa16p361, European Regional Science Association.
    16. Phan, Van & Singleton, Carl & Bryson, Alex & Forth, John & Ritchie, Felix & Stokes, Lucy & Whittard, Damian, 2022. "Accounting for Firms in Ethnicity Wage Gaps throughout the Earnings Distribution," IZA Discussion Papers 15284, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Kwabena Nyarko Addai & Wencong Lu & Omphile Temoso, 2021. "Are Female Rice Farmers Less Productive than Male Farmers? Micro-evidence from Ghana," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 33(6), pages 1997-2039, December.
    18. Romuald Foueka, 2020. "Analyse du différentiel de performances scolaires dans les pays PASEC sur la base de la régression quantile contrefactuelle," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 32(4), pages 605-618, December.
    19. Heuermann, Daniel F. & Vom Berge, Philipp, 2024. "Unemployment, Segregation, and the Structure of Cities," IZA Discussion Papers 17058, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Holly Monti & Martha Stinson & Lori Zehr, 2020. "How Long Do Early Career Decisions Follow Women? The Impact of Employer History on the Gender Wage Gap," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 189-232, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    earnings inequality; income inequality; household composition; secondary earners; government transfers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16874. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.