Social Issues: Income Inequality

Abstract

This article presents an overview of income inequality in the United States. The inequality gap within the US can be explained by an increase in the number of millionaires and billionaires within the country, as well as stagnancy of wages in lower and middle-income houses and increasing costs of living. Factors indicating levels of controllable consumption (such as house size and vehicle weight) continue to increase as savings and asset levels decrease and other less controllable expenses (such as the cost of education and healthcare) are also rising. High levels of localized income inequality also have a strong correlation with social problems such as divorce, bankruptcy, and early death. However, discussing income inequality is not synonymous with discussing poverty. Some of the available evidence suggests that many of these inequality problems derive as much or more from psychological compulsions and behavioral conditioning as economic circumstances.

Overview

Income Inequality & Its Causes. Increasing wealth among the extremely wealthy in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century has been compared to the boon of wealth the United States experienced during the Gilded Age (1878 to 1889). The Gilded Age, so coined by Mark Twain, was a time like America’s modern economic circumstances: the highest concentration of wealth was held by .01 percent of the workforce. Such a polarization during the Gilded Age, however, can be explained as a result of the government's defense of established business and property interests, low taxation, and the high rate of return on investments. In contrast, modern day wealth polarization is more genuinely a consequence of market-forces. Forces such as wage stagnation, increasing numbers of wealthy individuals, lower taxes, difficulties in achieving upward mobility, deregulation, and globalization are all factors in the debate over income inequality within the United States.

Wage Stagnation. Households among the bottom 90 percent of earners (that is, those making less than about $150,000 annually) have only made modest economic gains in recent decades. The Great Recession resulted in a 36.1 percent decrease in median household wealth in the United States. Median household income in America decreased substantially between 2007 and 2011, after increasing annually between 1995 and 1999. Overall, the wealthy were recognizing more gains while the less fortunate experienced wage stagnation. In the early 2020s, the median household income increased slightly from $68,010 in 2020 to $70,784 in 2021.

A Growing Population of the Wealthy. In 1982, there were only 13 billionaires living in the United States; five of them were children of Texas oil tycoon, H.L. Hunt. In 2023, the number of billionaires living in the United States rose to 770, with the number of households worth a million dollars or more at about 21 million (Latu, 2023; Ciochia, 2023).

Taxes. In the 1920s, the top 10 percent of earners only paid 1 percent of their earnings in income tax. However, the demotion of the nation's top earners happened very suddenly in 1946 with the establishment of higher taxation both on income and on capital (that is, on revenue from stock ownership; 70 percent of which was owned by one percent of the population in 1929). The taxation rate for affluent individuals grew as high as 79 percent during the New Deal in the 1930s and 91 percent in the post-war period; the current top rate is 35 percent. Corporate taxes increased from 14 percent in 1929 to 45 percent after World War II, and the estate tax rate increased from 20 percent to as high as 77 percent on the largest inheritances (Krugman, 2015). The United States later experienced a steady decrease in the amount of taxes paid by the extremely wealthy. In the 1970s, individual tax and corporate gains tax rates were 70 and 39 percent, respectively. In 2013, tax rate percentages numbered 20.6 and 12.1 percent. In 2017, the Trump administration passed a tax reform that lowered the top rate for five out of seven tax brackets, including the top bracket and excluding the bottom. The tax reform lowered the individual tax rate from 39.6 percent in 2016 to 35 percent. In 2023, US federal tax brackets ranged from 10 percent to 37 percent for the 2022 tax year (Parys & Orem, 2023).

Education & Stratification. Before 1980, economists argued that education was not monetarily beneficial in most cases, and that those with a college degree faced strict competition for a small pool of well-paying jobs (Cowen, 2007; Krugman, 2015). However, the modern work environment places a huge emphasis on educational experience and higher education. After 1980, a new emphasis on educational experience and higher education resulted in a higher premium being placed on advanced education. The pool of people financially or motivationally willing and able to attain higher education grew rapidly, especially with government borrowing programs and lower tuitions. In turn, this larger group of college-educated workers drove down wages for unskilled workers and raised accepted skill expectations. For those who did not obtain higher education due to lack of motivation, pressing responsibilities, or financial trouble, the playing field became uneven. However, in 2022, debate sparked concerning the cost of higher education compared to the potential earnings young people faced after graduation.

Deregulation. In the 1980s, the system of economic regulation that had been established by the New Deal and maintained through the post-war years was partially eliminated. Telecommunications, banking, trucking, airlines, and energy production were deregulated. Trade barriers that benefited domestic steel and vehicle production were dismantled, as the international economy became increasingly globalized. Some antitrust measures were loosened, allowing for mergers that would previously have been disallowed, such as multi-faced financial companies. These measures encouraged entrepreneurial activity and allowed for very high profits in high-risk ventures. Stock options were offered as incentives for executives (Lowenstein, 2007). Hedge fund managers and other top-earning executives that profited from the bull market generally transferred money from the wealthy to the extremely wealthy (Cowen, 2007). These economic reforms were triggered by poor stock market performance and high unemployment and inflation in the 1970s (Lowenstein, 2007). While this deregulation meant greater overall economic prosperity and opportunity for adventurous entrepreneurs, it fostered income inequality to become pronounced.

Globalization. In the modern global economy, United States trade practices have focused on exporting skill-intensive products like aircraft, supercomputers, and Hollywood movies and importing labor-intensive goods, like kitchen utensils and toys (Krugman, 2015). This strategy, while proving lucrative, is argued by some to reduce job opportunities for less-skilled American workers and increases demand for more skilled workers.

International Trends for Comparison. Investigations into international economies highlighted some commonalities helpful for analyzing income inequality within the United States. For example, it has been noted that growing levels of income inequality are relatively common as nations continue to develop. Additionally, it has been observed that the hours worked typically correspond to income inequality—top earners work more hours than middle-earners, who in turn work more hours than lower-earners (Glazer, 2005). While these commonalities are important to recognize, several important differences have been highlighted within the international socioeconomic arena as well. For example, in Switzerland and Italy, the relationship between labor and prosperity is reversed, with the poor working more hours than the well-off. In Sweden, everyone works roughly the same number of hours (Glazer, 2005).

These international perspectives have direct implications on the status of the American labor system. While increasing amounts of income inequality are to be expected within developed/developing nations, income inequality is especially pronounced in the United States. Additionally, laborers in the United States in 2021 worked the heaviest hours compared to international standards, with even the lowest-level earners in the United States logging unusually long work hours. The average full-time employee in the US logged 37.5 hours each week, while the average European logged 19 percent fewer hours. Single mothers and other traditionally low-income earners in the US work about double the number of hours than their counterparts in the UK, Germany, or Canada do. Though the United States contains some of the hardest working people—averaging 1,757 hours each year in 2021—its population of the working poor and the poverty rate are some of the highest in the developed world (Coing, 2021; Glazer, 2005).

Social Programs Formerly used to Diminish Income Inequality. There have been numerous attempts—legislation, organizations, and treaties—to diminish the levels of income inequality in America. Taxation, union membership, and the Treaty of Detroit are all examples of such measures.

Union Membership. Between 1933 and 1938, union membership tripled, and by 1947 it almost doubled again. Previously, union organizers were often arrested and even deported. The Fair Labor Relations Act of 1935 established governmental defense of a right to collective bargaining, with union organizations also escalating independently in the US and elsewhere. Such union strength and a wartime onward standardization of wages continued into the 1970s. This thirty-year period of effort towards the equalization of income appears to defy the conventional economic laws of supply and demand, with economic expansion and high job growth taking place despite greater controls and regulations. Interestingly, during this period of economic expansion in the US, Europe was experiencing relatively low employment rates and slow economic growth, a pattern eventually termed "Eurosclerosis" by economists (Krugman, 2015). In 2020, union membership was 10.8 percent, up by 0.5 percent from 2019. Union membership nationwide has declined precipitously since 1983, when it stood at 20.1 percent. By 2022, union membership reached 10.1 percent, which concerned 58 percent of Americans who viewed the continued decrease as bad for workers and the country (Green, 2023).

Reuther's "Treaty of Detroit." The 1949 Reuther's "Treaty of Detroit" was a labor agreement between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three automakers. This treaty served as a model for several labor agreements in numerous other industries. According to the agreement, physical laborers were granted raises in proportion to the rise in productivity as well as additional retirement and health benefits. While such agreements still have a place within the American and international labor arenas, union membership in the United States declined from 39 percent 1973 to 10.1 percent in 2022 (Green, 2023), and non-manufacturing employers have successfully resisted unionization. The percentage of workers who are paid according to performance increased from 30 percent of all workers in the 1970s to 40 percent in the 1990s. Interestingly, one study attributed 25 percent of the increase in income inequality to performance-based pay because it can result in different salaries being paid for the same job. This finding clearly undermines the goals of unionization to establish a higher (and equal) pay floor for all unionized workers (Gross, 2007).

Applications

Income Inequality within Specific Fields. Growing economic inequality has been identified within single fields in which foreign competition is not a major factor and in which a flat level of earning might be expected. Dentistry graduates fit into this pattern. Dentists who opt to perform cosmetic dentistry rather than traditional dentistry reap the benefits of high demand and the concomitant high salaries that come with it. The cosmetic dentistry business fits within the "winner-take-all" (or mutually reinforcing) market model: those markets "in which small differences in performance translate into extremely large differences in reward" (Frank, 2007, pp. 99-100).

Pay rate increases for top entertainers and professional athletes have mirrored those seen within the business industry, specifically the pay of CEOs. Like baseball players who won the right to sell their services to the highest bidder in 1976 (with the nullification of the "reserve clause"), it has recently been common for CEOs to sell their services to the highest paying company. For well-known and well-established CEOs, like Lou Gerstner who moved from RJR Nabisco to IBM, their value is not necessarily industry specific, but ability specific. Overall, a skill hungry market has been quite lucrative for those who have attained and managed their success. For those who don't have such a leg up, the income inequality gap increases (Frank, 2007, pp. 95–97).

Income Inequality & Social Capital. Although redistributive programs such as public assistance have been more limited in the US than in other countries, non-governmental organizations (particularly religious organizations) have historically filled the gap. In the nineteenth century, Catholic and Jewish immigrants were heavily supported through churches and communities of previous immigrants. These support programs, which can be described as a form of social capital formation, continue to have a significant—if difficult to trace—impact on the detrimental effects of income inequality. In this context, social capital refers to supportive social structures at the community rather than the individual level and addresses both tangible resources (such as healthcare) and intangible resources (such as mutually supporting social networks).

The most straightforward analysis of how social capital counteracts the negative impacts of income inequality is evident in terms of health and mortality rates and causes, as well as in behavioral patterns and psychosocial conditions (such as severe stress). These categories can be measured with the socioeconomic status (SES) gradient. Vermont, Minnesota, and Montana have been identified as states with the highest levels of social capital, and strong networks of social support have been demonstrated to minimize the detrimental effects of the absence of full health care coverage. High immunization rates and the presence of community hospitals provide a strong indicator of social capital. On the other hand, states with a legacy of strong heterogeneity and a history of racism discourage civic-minded social capital formation, so to speak. Southern states with the highest proportion of African Americans have the lowest social capital level and the highest premature mortality rates. It is worth noting, however, that the presence of social capital also overlaps significantly with evidence of a high median income. And yet, there is also some evidence that a high family income is often a less crucial factor than social networks in accounting for the age-adjusted mortality rate (Weaver & Rivello, 2006–2007).

Income Related Elements & Their Effect on Social Status, Subjective Well-being & Death. Both economic inequality and low social status have an identifiable connection with sickness and premature death. The often-cited "Whitehall Studies" of British civil servants (1967–1969), all of whom received identical access to the highly reliable British National Health Service, concludes that low-ranking employees exhibited substantially higher levels of illness and death, even after controllable factors (such as smoking, poor nutrition, and alcohol consumption) were accounted for. A follow-up study in the late 1980s found an even more pronounced trend: Low-level female civil servants suffered long illnesses at four times the rate of top-level workers. A simple interpretation of this evidence is that subordination itself is emotionally stressful and can even induce unpleasant chemical (or physiological) responses.

Income & Happiness. A study of self-reported levels of happiness in Japan reveals that the level has remained almost unchanged between 1960 and 1990, though the average GDP tripled over the same period. In that self-reporting scale of 1 to 10, happiness remains slightly over or slightly under six, although improvements in the economy correspond with slight increases in happiness and vice versa. A study of levels of self-reported satisfaction in the US between 1981 and 1984 reveal a roughly 100 percent increase in satisfaction between those with marginal income and those making about $20,000 annually, but at $40,000 annually the self-reported satisfaction only increases by roughly another 10 percent. An income of nearly $100,000 is required for another 10 to 15 percent increase of satisfaction to register (Frank, 2007, pp. 21, 23). Frank (2007) defines this tendency in terms of behavioral economics—"the tendency [is] for the pain caused by a loss of given magnitude to be greater than the pleasure caused by a gain of the same size. When income inequality increases, the expectation is thus that the pain experienced by those who fall behind is greater than the pleasure increased by those who pull ahead" (p. 62). The US was listed tenth overall on the United Nation’s World Happiness Report in 2021 but dropped to number fifteen by 2022.

Income Inequality & Homicide. Daly, Wilson, and Vasdev (2001) recast some conventional thoughts concerning the relationship of economic inequality, social status, and early death by comparing social status to homicide rates in Canada and the US. Using the Gini Coefficient, they found a consistently rising pattern and a stable, correlating relationship. The intriguing and disturbing qualifying factor in this study is that the Canadian data, in particular, reveals that a significantly high rate of income inequality could overlap with a relatively high income and a relatively high probability of death by homicide. In other words, income inequality is not synonymous with poverty as some earlier studies implied or assumed. Localized income inequality itself, rather than poverty alone, is a strong predictor of death by homicide. They also conclude that income inequality can result in as much as a ten-fold increase in the likelihood of dying by homicide and attribute 50 percent of the possible variation in outcomes to income inequality (Daly, Wilson & Vasdev, 2001; Frank, 2007). A spatial ecological case study focused on zip codes of socioeconomic disadvantaged individuals in the US found the concentration of low-income families experience a higher rate of homicide risk than individuals who live in zip codes composed of high-income individuals (Gobaud et al., 2022).

Viewpoints

Income Inequality & Consumption. Conventional wisdom would assume that with increasing income inequality rates, consumption inequality rates would increase as well. Interestingly, the inequality of consumption increased only slightly between 1980 and 2003; a rate that does not correlate to the highly increasing rate of income inequality (Krueger & Perri, 2006). One theory attempting to explain this situation is that people are motivated by the "positional" goal of matching their peers in the acquisition of possessions. Another possible, but largely ignored, theory asserts that households consider their own earlier levels of consumption when making purchasing choices. Milton Friedman's explanation was that household spending is based on long-term rather than short-term income, and households would therefore save more when they had the opportunity. There appears to be no statistical evidence, however, that spending remains stable with increases in earnings, or "windfall" income (periodic income such as an inheritance) (Frank, 2007, pp. 74–75).

To prevent overspending in previous centuries European nations enacted "sumptuary" laws. These laws were intended to discourage the public from spending money on luxury items such as gold buttons, lace, and multicourse meals, but the public responded by purchasing expensive alternatives such as ivory buttons, silk, and single-course meals that contained multiple types of food. In the 1990s, US tax policies meant to discourage spending on expensive yachts, planes, and cars led consumers to purchase similar, but used, items. Domestic manufacturers of those luxury items suffered as a result (Frank, 2007, pp. 103–104).

Economics professor R.H. Frank uses a hypothetical scenario to explain high consumption, particularly positional consumption, to his students. Frank presents two scenarios and asks the students about their preference: Scenario one, in which they would inhabit a 4,000 square-foot house where the local average is 50 percent larger; or scenario two, in which they would inhabit a 3,000 square-foot house where the local average is about 33 percent smaller. Most students pick the second scenario, seemingly because they prefer to own superior possessions to their peers. In a second scenario, students were asked if they would choose a job that offered four weeks of vacation time while their peers received six weeks, or one in which they received two weeks of vacation time and their peers received one week. In this scenario most chose the second scenario, most obviously based on the absolute value of more vacation time. These two scenarios are meant to illustrate that house size (and vacation time) is usually—but should not be—viewed as a positional good. Positional goods are goods that derive value only through their desirability as compared to substitutes; positional goods afford the holder exclusivity, often in the form of social status.

Conclusion

Income inequality is affected by many factors, situations, and legislation. The United States, a highly developed and successful nation, has one of the highest income inequality gaps in the world in the twenty-first century. This can be deemed a result of a true market economy where those with the resources can strive ahead; however, the negative impact on those who are left in the dust is easy to see when researching happiness, death rate, and labor statistics in correlation to wage. Practices enacted in the past including legislation and union membership have shown helpful in diminishing income inequality. The only question is whether this is a situation Americans need (and want) to fix.

Terms & Concepts

Gilded Age: The period of 1900–1929 is sometimes termed the "Progressive Age," but the Gilded Age can also be described as essentially extending from 1870 (the Reconstruction after the Civil War) to 1929 in the sense that the Great Depression and the Second World War are characterized by a drastic—and even revolutionary—decrease in income inequality. At the same time, however, federal regulation was bolstered after 1900, and a constitutional amendment was enacted to prevent the Supreme Court from declaring that a federal income tax was unconstitutional a second time (Krugman, 2015).

Gini Coefficient: The Gini coefficient measures the inequality of the distribution of income or wealth in graph form. An equal distribution would appear as a 45-degree line in a graph charting the population and the share of income or wealth, and the portion of the graph below that line, which measures the degree of income inequality, is known as the Lorenz curve. A ratio, termed the Gini index, is assigned with a value of 0 to 1. The Gini index is lower than 0.25 in Japan, about 0.25 in Australia and most of Northern Europe, about 0.3 in Canada, 0.4 in China, and 0.5 in the United States and much of South America.

Kuznet's Curve: Simon Kunzet studied income inequality in Germany, the United States, and Great Britain in the 1950s. He argued that an increase in income inequality would precede a reduction. Kuznet's curve, or hypothesis, is usually discussed in terms of the movement from physical labor (or capital) to human capital and industrial development. The general pattern he discusses is a roughly accurate account of the US experience between 1870 and 1973. His theory seems to be "organic" in that it emphasizes the natural progression from agricultural and rural industries to urban, technological industries. Kuznet's curve appears as a diagram with an inverted "U" curve rising then falling in roughly 45-degree angles.

Positional Good: Goods that derive value only through their desirability as compared to substitutes; they afford the holder exclusivity, often in the form of social status.

Socioeconomic Status Gradient (SES Gradient): Refers to the link between low income and ill-health, particularly conditions such as diabetes, ulcers, and heart disease. The conventional logic has been that poorer-than-average health is related to a simple absence of high-quality healthcare, but some more daring studies have attempted to illustrate a link between health problems, low income, low social status, and the psychosocial or psychosomatic causes of illness.

Social Capital: In this context, social capital denotes the community-based networks that foster trust and cooperation; these networks tend to be mutually reinforcing but, an individual lacking these connections cannot enact a movement of civic engagement in a void. Rather, like more ambitious studies of the SES Gradient, some studies attempt to illustrate a link between high social capital and the alleviation of stress and a strengthened immune system, in addition to the social benefits.

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