>Actually, I was thinking about general inequality measures, as when we
>compare what the top 20% of workers make versus the bottom 20%. I am
>curious if the measures by folks noting increasing inequality are
>undermeasuring the true problem.
Census income definitions exclude capital gains. Also, job earnings are topcoded, meaning all earnings in excess of $299,999 are treated as $299,999 for internal Census use, and $99,999 in the publicly released file. These limits don't make that much difference for overall income distribution figures, but if you want a better look at the very high end, you've got to go to the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances, which oversamples rich people. Bob Pollin told me that a friend of his did the SCF survey in Beverly Hills, and resorted to recipe swapping in order to get the richies to play along.
Doug