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Title: Long-Term Trends in the Levy Institute Measure of Economic Well-Being (LIMEW), United States, 1959–2004

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2008

Abstract: The picture of economic well-being is crucially dependent on the yardstick used to measure it. The LIMEW is different in scope from the official US Census Bureau measure of gross money income (MI) in that our measure includes public consumption, income from wealth, and household production. In previous work, Wolff and Zacharias (2007) found that the median U.S. household was much better off in 2001 relative to 1989 according to LIMEW in comparison to MI. They also found that the racial gap widened according to LIMEW, while MI suggested a mild improvement. On the other hand, the hump-shaped relationship between age and economic well-being was not found when the LIMEW is used as the yardstick, due to the higher relative well-being of the elderly. Measured inequality was lower according to LIMEW than gross money income but the increase between 1989 and 2001 was higher for the LIMEW. In the current study, we extend the LIMEW backward in time to 1959. We find that median LIMEW and MI grew at about the same annual rate from 1959 to 2000 but LIMEW grew much slower from 1959 to 1982 and much faster from 1982 to 2000. Second, LIMEW showed a greater increase in inequality from 1959 to 2000 than MI (7.1 versus 5.7 Gini points), and particularly from 1959 to 1982. Third, the racial gap in mean values narrowed from 1959 to 1989 according to both measures but then widened from 1989 to 2000 according to LIMEW but continued to narrow according to MI.

Url: http://iariw.org/papers/2008/wolff.pdf

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Authors: Wolff, Edward, N; Ajit, Zacharias; Thomas, Masterson

Conference Name: 30th General Conference of The International Association for Research in Income and Wealth

Publisher Location: Portoroz, Slovenia

Data Collections: IPUMS Time Use - ATUS

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure

Countries:

IPUMS NHGIS NAPP IHIS ATUS Terrapop