IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/15811.html

Measuring the Impact of Health Insurance on Levels and Trends in Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Richard V. Burkhauser
  • Kosali I. Simon

Abstract

A substantial part of the inequality literature in the United States has focused on yearly levels and trends in income and its distribution over time. Recent findings in that literature show that median income appears to be stagnating with income growth primarily coming at higher income levels. But the value of health insurance is an important and growing source of economic well being for American households that is missed by focusing solely on income. In this paper we take estimates of the value of different types of health insurance received by households and add them to usual pre tax post transfer measures of income from the Current Population Survey's March Annual Demographic Supplement for income years 1995-2008 to investigate their impact on levels and trends in measured inequality. We show that ignoring the value of health insurance coverage will substantially understate the level of economic well being of Americans and its upward trend and overstate the level of inequality and its upward trend. As an application of our fuller measure of income, we consider how two provisions of current health reform proposals to expand health insurance affect the level and distribution of economic well being.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard V. Burkhauser & Kosali I. Simon, 2010. "Measuring the Impact of Health Insurance on Levels and Trends in Inequality," NBER Working Papers 15811, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15811
    Note: EH
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15811.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Helen Levy, 2006. "Health Insurance and the Wage Gap," NBER Working Papers 11975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Daron Acemoglu, 2003. "Cross-Country Inequality Trends," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 121-149, February.
    3. Andrea Brandolini & Anthony B. Atkinson, 2001. "Promise and Pitfalls in the Use of "Secondary" Data-Sets: Income Inequality in OECD Countries As a Case Study," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 771-799, September.
    4. Remler, D.K. & Glied, S.A., 2003. "What other programs can teach us: Increasing participation in health insurance programs," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(1), pages 67-74.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robert Moffitt, 2015. "The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(3), pages 729-749, June.
    2. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Larrimore, Jeff & Simon, Kosali I., 2012. "A "Second Opinion" on the Economic Health of the American Middle Class," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 65(1), pages 7-32, March.
    3. Richard V. Burkhauser & Jeff Larrimore & Sean Lyons, 2017. "Measuring Health Insurance Benefits: The Case Of People With Disabilities," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(3), pages 439-456, July.
    4. Jae Song & David J Price & Fatih Guvenen & Nicholas Bloom & Till von Wachter, 2019. "Firming Up Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 1-50.
    5. Emanuela Raffinetti & Elena Siletti & Achille Vernizzi, 2017. "Analyzing the Effects of Negative and Non-negative Values on Income Inequality: Evidence from the Survey of Household Income and Wealth of the Bank of Italy (2012)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 185-207, August.
    6. Korenman, Sanders D. & Remler, Dahlia K., 2016. "Including health insurance in poverty measurement: The impact of Massachusetts health reform on poverty," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 27-35.
    7. Robert Kaestner & Darren Lubotsky, 2016. "Health Insurance and Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 53-78, Spring.
    8. Hubert Janicki & Brett O’Hara & Alice Zawacki, 2013. "Comparing Methods For Imputing Employer Health Insurance Contributions In The Current Population Survey," Working Papers 13-41, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    9. James Elwell & Kevin Corinth & Richard V. Burkhauser, 2019. "Income Growth and its Distribution from Eisenhower to Obama: The Growing Importance of In-Kind Transfers (1959-2016)," NBER Working Papers 26439, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Sanders Korenman & Dahlia K. Remler & Rosemary T. Hyson, 2019. "Accounting for the Impact of Medicaid on Child Poverty," NBER Working Papers 25973, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2013. "Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 689-727, December.
    2. Cecilia Garcia Peñalosa & Orgiazzi, E., 2011. "GINI DP 12: Factor Components of Inequality. A Cross-Country Study," GINI Discussion Papers 12, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    3. Holger M. Mueller & Paige P. Ouimet & Elena Simintzi, 2015. "Wage Inequality and Firm Growth," LIS Working papers 632, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Gimenez-Nadal, Jose Ignacio & Sevilla, Almudena, 2012. "Trends in time allocation: A cross-country analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1338-1359.
    5. Timothy M Smeeding, 2002. "Globalisation, Inequality and the Rich Countries of the G-20: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: David Gruen & Terry O'Brien & Jeremy Lawson (ed.),Globalisation, Living Standards and Inequality: Recent Progress and Continuing Challenges, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    6. Timothy M. Smeeding, 2002. "Globalization, Inequality, and the Rich Countries of the G-20: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 48, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    7. Thi Hong Hanh Pham, 2015. "Income Inequality and Foreign Aid," Working Papers hal-01158240, HAL.
    8. Salverda, Wiemer & Checchi, Daniele, 2014. "Labour-Market Institutions and the Dispersion of Wage Earnings," IZA Discussion Papers 8220, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Richard Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Stephen Jenkins & Jeff Larrimore, 2011. "Estimating trends in US income inequality using the Current Population Survey: the importance of controlling for censoring," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 9(3), pages 393-415, September.
    10. Alvaredo, Facundo & Bourguignon, François & Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Lustig, Nora, 2023. "Seventy-five Years of Measuring Income Inequality in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13157, Inter-American Development Bank.
    11. Benabou, Roland, 2005. "Inequality, Technology and the Social Contract," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1595-1638, Elsevier.
    12. Ronald Bachmann & Peggy Bechara & Sandra Schaffner, 2016. "Wage Inequality and Wage Mobility in Europe," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(1), pages 181-197, March.
    13. Jung, Samuel Moon & Vijverberg, Chu-Ping C., 2019. "Financial development and income inequality in China – A spatial data analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 295-320.
    14. Jennifer Elena Feichtmayer & Klaus Gründler, 2021. "Global Evidence on Misperceptions and Preferences for Redistribution," CESifo Working Paper Series 9381, CESifo.
    15. Bourguignon, Francois, 2005. "The Effect of Economic Growth on Social Structures," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 27, pages 1701-1747, Elsevier.
    16. Francois, Joseph & Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2005. "The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets," CEPR Discussion Papers 5214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. repec:plo:pone00:0233034 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Abu-Qarn, Aamer & Lichtman-Sadot, Shirlee, 2019. "Connecting Disadvantaged Communities to Work and Higher Education Opportunities: Evidence from Public Transportation Penetration to Arab Towns in Israel," IZA Discussion Papers 12824, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Di Caro, Paolo & Figari, Francesco & Fiorio, Carlo & Manzo, Marco & Riganti, Andrea, 2022. "One step forward and three steps back: pros and cons of a flat tax reform," MPRA Paper 113684, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Lex Borghans & Bas ter Weel, 2008. "Understanding the Technology of Computer Technology Diffusion: Explaining Computer Adoption Patterns and Implications for the Wage Structure," Journal of Income Distribution, Ad libros publications inc., vol. 17(3-4), pages 37-70, September.
    21. Patrizio Pagano, 2004. "An empirical investigation of the relationship between inequality and growth," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 536, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty

    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:nbr:nberwo:15811. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.