More Than You Ever Wanted To Know About Inequality

by Stuart Shapiro

Inequality is a cancer that eats away at a society and can eventually destroy it.  A handy new website has a whole lot of information about how inequality is growing in the U.S. to levels not seen since the Jazz Age.  The graph above shows the growth in the ratio between the 90th percentile in the wage rate and the median wage rate (or the 50th percentile).

We find that lower-tail inequality rose sharply in the 1980s and contracted somewhat thereafter, while upper-tail inequality has increased steadily since 1980.

There is a whole lot more data on the website to chew on and get depressed about.  So swallow some anti-depressants and click on through!

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.