In this chapter, we looked at three issues related to the question of fairness: income inequality, poverty, and discrimination.
The distribution of income in the United States has become more unequal in the last four decades. Among the factors contributing to increased inequality have been changes in family structure, technological change, and tax policy. While rising inequality can be a concern, there is a good deal of movement of families up and down the distribution of income, though recently mobility may have decreased somewhat.
Poverty can be measured using an absolute or a relative income standard. The official measure of poverty in the United States relies on an absolute standard. This measure tends to overstate the poverty rate because it does not count noncash welfare aid as income. The new supplemental poverty measures have begun to take these programs into account. Poverty is concentrated among female-headed households, minorities, people with relatively little education, and people who are not in the labor force. Children have a particularly high poverty rate.
Welfare reform in 1996 focused on moving people off welfare and into work. It limits the number of years that individuals can receive welfare payments and allows states to design the specific parameters of their own welfare programs. Following the reform, the number of people on welfare fell dramatically. The long-term impact on poverty is still under investigation.
Federal legislation bans discrimination. Affirmative action programs, though controversial, are designed to enhance opportunities for minorities and women. Wage gaps between women and white males and between blacks and white males have declined since the 1950s. For black males, however, most of the reduction occurred between 1965 and 1973. Much of the decrease in wage gaps is due to acquisition of human capital by women and blacks, but some of the decrease also reflects a reduction in discrimination.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the following three alternatives for dealing with the rising inequality of wages.
Here are income distribution data for three countries, from the Human Development Report 2005, table 15. Note that here we report only four data points rather than the five associated with each quintile. These emphasize the distribution at the extremes of the distribution.
Poorest 10% | Poorest 20% | Richest 20% | Richest 10% | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Panama | 0.7 | 2.4 | 60.3 | 43.3 |
Sweden | 3.6 | 9.1 | 36.6 | 22.2 |
Singapore | 1.9 | 5.0 | 49.0 | 32.8 |
Looking at Figure 19.7 "Prejudice and Discrimination" suppose the wage that black workers are receiving in a discriminatory environment, WB, is $25 per hour, while the wage that white workers receive, W, is $30 per hour. Now suppose a regulation is imposed that requires that black workers be paid $30 per hour also.
Suppose the poverty line in the United States was set according to the test required in the European Union: a household is poor if its income is less than 60% of the median household income. Here are annual data for median household income in the United States for the period 1994–2004. The data also give the percentage of the households that fall below 60% of the median household income.
Median Household Income in the U.S. | Percent of households with income below 60% of median | |
---|---|---|
1994 | 40,677 | 30.1 |
1995 | 41,943 | 30.4 |
1996 | 42,544 | 29.9 |
1997 | 43,430 | 29.1 |
1998 | 45,003 | 27.8 |
1999 | 46,129 | 27.1 |
2000 | 46,058 | 26.4 |
2001 | 45,062 | 27.4 |
2002 | 44,546 | 27.8 |
2003 | 44,482 | 28.3 |
2004 | 44,389 | 28.3 |
Source: U.S Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-229; Income in 2004 CPI-U-RS adjusted dollars; column 3 estimated by authors using Table A-1, p. 31.
Consider the following model of the labor market in the United States. Suppose that the labor market consists of two parts, a market for skilled workers and the market for unskilled workers, with different demand and supply curves for each as given below. The initial wage for skilled workers is $20 per hour; the initial wage for unskilled workers is $7 per hour.