Inequality

Out of 31 industrialized countries that test adults, U.S. ranked 14th in literacy and 24th in numeracy.

About half of U.S. adults (52%) lived in middle-income households in 2022, according to our new analysis of government data.

A report analyzing women’s gains in the workplace found that, despite some progress, women still hold less power than men.

The median woman working full time in 2023 earned 83% of what the median man earned.

— Vincent Geloso (@VincentGeloso)

Throughout the past decade, hostility against growing economic inequality has gained ground. An increasing consensus seems to be gravitating towards the seductive demand for “fairness." When applied by progressives, the term refers to equal outcomes. But the only way to achieve fairness without violating individuals’ rights is by securing procedural justice, not end-state justice.

Decades ago, the Nobel Prize-winning F.A. Hayek observed the Kafkaesque logic of trying to usher in a more equal society by treating people unequally.

Michigan women earn almost 20 cents less per dollar than their male counterparts, while having less opportunity to work full-time.  That’s according to the second Women in Michigan Workforce Report, a collaboration of the Michigan Women’s Commission and the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics. Released Monday, the report concluded that while women make up […]

A lesson in critical thinking I got in undergrad: Econ 1 prof hands us an article about airlines overbooking & offering money at the gate to bump passengers. Article argues we should ban this. Reasoning is that it’s exploitative: poorer people overwhelmingly more likely to get… https://t.co/gvipmWUJ7J— Ilya Abyzov (@IlyaAbyzov) March 17, 2024

Interviews with people in remote communities challenge widely held perception that money buys happiness

Active learning today in Prin Macro: Student volunteers had to distribute 100 donuts to represent the share of household income by quintiles in the US. Lots of donuts piled on that highest quintile! H/T @equineomics for the idea. pic.twitter.com/32a3yk2rpA— Erin Yetter (@DrErinYetter) February 12, 2024

In a new paper for the Journal of Political Economy, Gerald Auten and David Splinter question whether “rising inequality” is really as large as it’s made out to be.

Most don’t work anymore, but Americans age 70 and older have seen their share of collective wealth surge during the pandemic.

About 1-in-4 Black households and 1-in-7 Hispanic households had no wealth or were in debt in 2021, compared with about 1-in-10 U.S. households overall.

Building wealth slowly works.

Billionaires know they are. Low-wage workers are very well aware that they aren’t. But vast swaths of America’s “regular rich” don’t feel that way, and it’s keeping everybody down.

How wealthy people invest their money.

The Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement reports the official poverty rate in 2021 was 11.6%, not statistically different from 2020.

It’s financial equality. Duh.

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC.

Recent research concludes that the rise in consumption inequality mirrors, or even exceeds, the rise in income inequality. We revisit this finding, constructing 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 rose over the past 5 decades, the rise in overall consumption inequality was small. The declining quality of income data likely contributes to these differences for the bottom of the distribution. Asset price changes likely account for some of the differences in recent years for the top of the distribution.

In an era of surging home and stock values, U.S. family wealth has soared. The trillions of dollars going to heirs will largely reinforce inequality.

In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new analysis of median hourly earnings of full- and part-time workers.

In marriages where both partners have the same income, women spend about four-and-a-half more hours a week on chores and caregiving than men.

Why beauty bias financially hurts all women.

If women don’t conform to beauty expectations, they’re paid less.

In 2022, women earned an average of 82% of what men earned, according to a new analysis of median hourly earnings of full- and part-time workers.

There are more than one equal pay day to denote the day that women of color must work until before their wages catch up with men's.

CNBC Marathon explores why American workers’ budgets feel so stretched.The middle class was once a symbol of the American dream. It meant financial security ...

What if racial and gender gaps did not exist in the labor market? Our Labor Market Equity Simulation estimates GDP gains for every US state.