bourgeosie at thought

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue May 25 12:11:26 PDT 1999


J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. wrote:


>What is your source for 1968 as the year of
>greatest income equality in the US?

The Census Bureau's annual gini indexes. Quintile ratios tell a slightly different story; the ratio of the richest quintile to the poorest bottomed out in 1974, though the top/middle ratio also bottomed out in 1968.

I know the Gini index isn't a perfect single measure - that Ginis, Atkinsons and Theils are all sensitive to different points of the distribution. I suppose the cautious thing to do is to say that U.S. income inequality bottomed out in the late 60s/early 70s and has risen pretty steadily ever since.

Here's the gini history for families and households since 1947. I've got a (somewhat dated) explanation of ginis at <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Gini_supplement.html>.

Doug

----

GINI INDEX - US FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS

family h'hold

1947 0.376

1948 0.371

1949 0.378

1950 0.379

1951 0.363

1952 0.368

1953 0.359

1954 0.371

1955 0.363

1956 0.358

1957 0.351

1958 0.354

1959 0.361

1960 0.364

1961 0.374

1962 0.362

1963 0.362

1964 0.361

1965 0.356

1966 0.349

1967 0.358 0.399

1968 0.348 0.388

1969 0.349 0.391

1970 0.353 0.394

1971 0.355 0.396

1972 0.359 0.401

1973 0.356 0.397

1974 0.355 0.395

1975 0.357 0.397

1976 0.358 0.398

1977 0.363 0.402

1978 0.363 0.402

1979 0.365 0.404

1980 0.365 0.403

1981 0.369 0.406

1982 0.380 0.412

1983 0.382 0.414

1984 0.383 0.415

1985 0.389 0.419

1986 0.392 0.425

1987 0.393 0.426

1988 0.395 0.427

1989 0.401 0.431

1990 0.396 0.428

1991 0.397 0.428

1992 0.404 0.434

1993 0.429 0.454

1994 0.426 0.456

1995 0.421 0.450

1996 0.425 0.455

1997 0.429 0.459



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