Full Citation
Title: Decreasing (and Then Increasing) Inequality in America: A Tale of Two Half-Centuries
Citation Type: Book, Section
Publication Year: 2001
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Abstract: Inequality across the twentieth century United States is a tale in two parts. The last half-century is the better known of the two and has been a period of widening inequality. But the first half-century, as we will demonstrate, was a period of narrowing inequality. It is the less well understood of the two tales largely because of data deficiencies. The federal population census, which provides much of the evidence on the distribution of material well being, first asked questions on income (and education) in 1940. We assemble data from a wide variety of sources showing conclusively that there was, during the first half of the century, a substantial decrease in various measures of inequality. The wage structure in manufacturing narrowed, the premium to various white-collar occupations decreased as did that for many craft trades, and the return to years of post-elementary education fell. These declines, moreover, came in two large spurts, both during wartime periods that were subsequently sustained. Not only was there a wage and income compression in the 1940s, about which much has been written, but there was also a narrowing in the late 1910s. Both periods of reductions in the premium to skill and decreases in the pecuniary return to education coincided, as well, with expansions in education, first for secondary schooling and later at the college level.
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Authors: Goldin, Claudia; Katz, Lawrence F.
Editors: Finish Welch,
Pages:
Volume Title: The Causes and Consequences of Increasing Inequality
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publisher Location: Chicago, IL
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Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Poverty and Welfare
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