Which of the Following Does Saez Not Include in His Measure of Family Income

Res Soc Stratif Mobil. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2010 December 1.

Published in final edited form as:

PMCID: PMC2805913

NIHMSID: NIHMS148032

Family unit Income at the Bottom and at the Top: Income Sources and Family Characteristics

Lawrence Eastward. Raffalovich

Section of Sociology University at Albany, SUNY

Shannon M. Monnat

Department of Sociology University of Nevada - Las Vegas

Hui-shien Tsao

Centre for Social and Demographic Assay University at Albany, SUNY

Abstract

Attention has recently been focused on wealth every bit a source of long-term economic security and on wealth ownership as a crucial aspect of the racial economic divisions in the The states. This literature, however has been concerned primarily with the wealth gap between poor and middle-class families, and between the white and black middle class. In this newspaper, we investigate the incomes of families at the top and lesser of the family income distribution. We examine the sources of income and the demographic characteristics of these loftier-income and low-income families using family unit level information from the 1988-2003 Current Population Surveys.

We observe that, at the bottom of the distribution, transfer income is the major income source; in particular, income from social security, supplemental security, and public assistance. At the top, employment income is the largest component of family income. Non-white, female, and non-married householders are unduly located at the lesser of the family income distribution. These families consist of both immature and old adults, with loftier-school educations or less, in low-level service occupations. Many are disabled, many are retired. Householders at the top of the income distribution are typically male person, white, and married. Householders and spouses at the top are typically center-historic period, with college educations, employed in professional service and managerial occupations.

We find that wealth is not an important source of income for families at the highest percentiles. The highest income families during this period in the U.S. were not a "belongings elite": their income is generally from employment. Nosotros speculate, however, that they will bring together the "belongings elite" afterwards in the life-course as they retire and receive income from their investments.

The Family Income Distribution: Income Components and Demographic Characteristics Introduction

Until the mid-1990s, near all discussions of economic inequality focused on income. Income, after all, is the proximate source of material well-being for the overwhelming bulk of families and individuals in most societies, and data on income are easily obtained from a broad variety of sources. More than recently, withal, attention has been focused on wealth every bit a measure of long-term economic security (Oliver & Shapiro 1997; Keister 2000; Shapiro 2004; Wolf 2002). The distinction between wealth and income is important because wealth signifies buying of a stock of assets, while income represents a menses of purchasing power. "Wealth represents a more permanent capacity to secure advantages in both the short and long term" (Shapiro 2004, 33), while income is a more curt-term chapters to acquire goods and services. Wealth and income are positively correlated, because income that is saved and/or invested thereby becomes wealth, and wealth can exist a source of income: families with more income can thereby amass more than wealth, and families with more wealth tin acquire boosted income (Wolf 2002; Keister 2000).

The distribution of wealth is exceedingly unequal in the United states, much more unequal that the distribution of income: In 2004, the bottom fifty% of families owned only ii.5% of net worth, while the top 1% owned 33.four%. In contrast, the bottom 50% of families received 23.8% of income, and the top 1% received thirteen.6% (Kinnickell 2006,Table 11a). The asset virtually equally distributed amongst families in the U.S. is the family abode¹: the bottom 50% of families owned 11.7% of the value of principal residences in 2004, and the side by side twoscore% endemic over half of that value. It is through home-buying that most Americans are able to accumulate wealth.

Oliver and Shapiro (1997) and Shapiro (2004) emphasize that, every bit a form of wealth, dwelling house-ownership conveys many of the advantages of wealth-property, including the ability to leverage home equity to provide better opportunities for ones' children, to invest in other avails, and to provide a hedge against spells of unemployment or other economic misfortune. They so argue that racial differences in the distribution of home-ownership create a qualitative chasm in life experiences and life chances between the white and black middle class.

In dissimilarity to income-earning assets, notwithstanding, home-ownership does not produce a flow of additional income, raising the family'south standard of living and, through savings or investment, adding to the family unit'south stock of wealth. Indeed, it is these income-producing assets (stocks, bonds, businesses, and existent estate other than the main residence) that gratuitous families from dependence on the labor market and contribute to economic independence, autonomy, and power. These income-producing avails are the near unequally-distributed of all: In 2004, the summit 1% of families owned over half of the value of all directly held stocks, 70% of directly held bonds, 62% of "closely held businesses," and 47% of not-residential real estate, while the bottom fifty% owned less than ane% of these avails (Kinnickell 2006, Table 11a). The unequal distribution of these economic resource is important for several reasons. In market economies, wealth is an important source of economic ability, and, in representative democracies, wealth is an of import source of political ability. Equally Gates and Collins (2002) suggest, "concentration of wealth and power distort our democratic institutions and economic arrangement and undermine social cohesion." Equally a result, the wealthy in America are granted more political power and greater opportunities (Cf. Lindblom, 1977).

Income and wealth are jointly determined. Income tin exist accumulated as wealth, and wealth is a source of additional income. We await, therefore, that the highest income families are those with the most substantial wealth holdings and thus the highest income from wealth. Opportunities for the acquisition of both income and wealth in the U.s. have historically been determined, in function, by race. Blacks' history of slavery, past and nowadays discrimination in employment and housing, and extremely high levels of residential segregation have all served to create and maintain inequality in the distribution of schooling, jobs, dwelling-ownership, and the ownership of other assets (Shapiro 2004). Therefore, nosotros too await that families with the highest incomes are predominantly white.

In addition, considering that approximately i-half of all Black households are headed past women, the economic status of Black women in the United States is an of import predictor and major force between the consistent and broad-spread disparity between Black and White households (Brown 1997; Rivlin 1992). We therefore look that black women are most likely to be located at the bottom of the family income distribution.

In what follows, we investigate the distribution of family unit income by income source, and the demographic characteristics of families at the top and the bottom of the family unit income distribution. Specifically, nosotros focus on the bottom 10% and 25%, and the top 10%, 1%, and 0.v%. Nosotros pay special attending to the very height because of our interest in wealth and income from wealth: every bit we volition show, simply those at the very top receive substantial income from wealth. In this paper, nosotros neglect the bottom 1% because their median income is under $1.00 for the entire sample flow. On closer test, the bottom 1% appears to be comprised of two very different populations: poor families with very low incomes, and others with large negative property and self-employment incomes. This is consequent with Lenski'south (1984, p. 191) suggestion that households with big negative incomes and big positive incomes are, in fact, very similar (e.m., entrepreneurs). We also examine what Lenski (1966, p. 340) calls the "property elite": those whose income from wealth exceeds twice the median income from all sources.

Data and Methods

Data are from the Electric current Population Survey, Almanac Demographic Supplement, 1968-2003. The Current Population Survey (CPS) is a monthly household survey conducted by the Demography Agency and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPS collects monthly economic, social, and demographic data on all persons in the l,000-60,000 sampled households (Electric current Population Survey, 2002); in add-on, the Almanac Demographic Supplement (ADS), collects employment and income data for the previous calendar year. Data are bachelor at the person-, family-, and household-level. Technical details are available in the CPS Technical Paper 63RV (Electric current Population Survey, 2002). We extracted family-level income data for 1988-2003 from the 2004 CD (CPS Utilities, 2004)^two. For each yr, we aggregated families into the family income percentiles noted higher up. For each, nosotros calculated the median income for each income source. Detailed income sources were aggregated into 5 wide categories: Employment (wages and salaries), Self-employment (cocky-employment and subcontract), Holding (dividends, interest, and rents), Transfer (alimony, kid-support, worker's bounty, teaching, financial assistance, public assistance and welfare, retirement, supplemental security from government, survivor benefits, social security/railroad retirement, unemployment compensation, and veteran's benefits), and "Other". We did not include the earned-income tax credit (EITC) in any of our income categories. The documentation for this variable states that the actual dollar amount received by families is non the value reported for this variable. It is, instead, a simulation of what the family would have been eligible for, non what they really received. There is no manner to know in the CPS how much the family actually received from the EITC (CPS Utilities, 2004).

The CPS pinnacle-codes all incomes at the individual level, and these meridian-codes inverse over time. Nosotros recoded all tiptop-codes to the 1988 values before we aggregated individual incomes into families.³ Income is expressed in constant 2003 dollars using the Demography Agency's Consumer Price Index Research Series (CPI-U-RS)⁴. We use the ADS family weights for all analyses (Northward=ane,039,305 families).

Analyses

Median family income and income sources for the bottom 10% of families are presented in Figure 1. Median income for these families declined from just over $5,000 in 1988 to under $4,000 in 2003. The only income source with a non-zip median is transfer income, which declined from under $3,000 in 1988 to naught by 1999^v. Other data (not shown) indicate that much of these transfers consisted of social security, supplemental security, and public assistance^{half dozen}. The demographic characteristics of these families are presented in Table 1. Half of the householders are between 25 and 61 years old, with a median historic period of xl. Householder'southward spouse (for those with a spouse) take a somewhat higher median age, and a narrower age range. Xx-nine percentage of householders are non-white, and over 63% are female. Well over 80% are not married, and more xx% have unmarried children under xviii living with them. One-half of householders did not complete 12 years of schooling, but half of spouses did.

Median Family Income and Components- Bottom ten% of Family Income

Table ane

Characteristics of Families at the Top and Bottom of the Family Income Distribution

	Lesser 10% (Due north=103,379)				Bottom 25% (Northward=248,526)				Pinnacle 10% (N=101,743)
		Md	Q1	Q3		Md	Q1	Q3		Md	Q1	Q3
Age
Householder		40	25	61		45	28	69		47	39	55
Spouse		47	32	lx		51	33	66		45	38	53
Education (years)
Householder		11	viii	12		12	8	12		16	12	18
Spouse		12	9	12		11	8	12		xiv	12	16
Race (% White)
Householder	71.iii				76.v				91.6
Spouse	79.viii				81.1				89.6
Sex activity (% Male)
Householder	36.6				39.3				78.4
Spouse	22.2				20.3				nineteen.0
Marital (% Married)	12.2				17.ane				88.two
Children <six (%1+)	12.2				11.v				15.9
Children <18 (%1+)	22.0				21.0				42.5
Employment: (%)
Householder
Employed	25.9				33.ane				83.7
Non at Work/Laid off	1.6				i.eight				3.0
Unemployed	5.8				4.4				ane.i
Unable/Disabled	12.ane				9.eight				0.5
Retired	17.4				24.8				6.5
Other	37.2				26.ane				5.i
Spouse
Employed	23.i				22.1				72.v
Non at Work/Laid off	1.6				1.4				3.2
Unemployed	3.five				2.8				0.8
Unable/Disabled	vi.7				vii.4				0.5
Retired	20.iv				24.iv				4.8
Other	44.7				41.8				eighteen.two
Modal Occupations	Nutrient Srvc Pers Srvc Retail				Food Srvc Retail Pers Srvc				Exec/Admin Mgmt Superv/Sales
Modal Industry	Retail/Const				Retail/Const				Prof/Ed Srvc

	Top 1% (Due north=x,163)				Top 0.v% (N=5.047)				Property Elite (Northward=five,668)
		Md	Q1	Q3		Doctor	Q1	Q3		Md	Q1	Q3
Age
Householder		50	42	57		50	43	59		61	50	71
Spouse		48	41	55		48	41	56		58	48	68
Instruction (years)
Householder		xvi	15	18		16	15	18		16	13	xviii
Spouse		16	13	17		sixteen	14	17		14	12	16
Race (% White)
Householder	93.4				93.3				95.4
Spouse	91.3				91.0				94.2
Sex (% Male)
Householder	78.8				79.vii				73.6
Spouse	20.two				19.2				17.5
Marital (% Married)	90.vii				90.half-dozen				75.i1
Children <6 (%1+)	14.0				thirteen.1				5.eight
Children <18 (%ane+)	38.4				36.i				18.2
Employment: (%)
Householder
Employed	82.9				82.4				49.vii
Not at Work/Laid off	3.4				3.iv				2.7
Unemployed	0.9				0.7				0.eight
Unable/Disabled	0.4				0.4				1.0
Retired	6.6				7.1				36.ix
Other	5.eight				5.9				viii.ix
Spouse
Employed	70.6				70.6				40.2
Non at Work/Laid off	iii.8				3.v				2.viii
Unemployed	0.8				0.eight				0.6
Unable/Disabled	0.4				0.4				1.one
Retired	v.2				5.half-dozen				28.ii
Other	nineteen.1				xix.0				27.2
Modal Occupations	Exec/Admin Med/Law Teachers				Exec/Admin Medicine Insure/RE				Exec/Admin Sales/Finance Teachers
Modal Industry	Prof/Health/Ed Srvc				Prof/Wellness/Ed Srvc				Prof/Wellness/Ed Srvc

Merely about a quarter of householders and spouses were employed during the week prior to the survey, although their unemployment rate of v.8% for householders is not much above the national average of 5.5% during these years, and the unemployment rate of 3.v% for spouses is below the national boilerplate (Agency of Labor Statistics 2009). Fully ii/3 of householders and 72% of spouses were out of the labor force, the majority for reasons other than inability and retirement. The modal occupations of those who were employed (both householders and spouses) are Food Services, Personal Services, and Retail. The modal industries are Retail Trade and Construction.

Median family unit income and income sources for the bottom quartile of family income are shown in Figure 2. Full family income for these families increased slightly over the sample menstruum, from about $9,500 in 1988 to just under 10,000 in 2003. Every bit with the lesser x%, the only income source with non-zero median income is transfer income, which declined from virtually $4,500 in 1988 to $2,000 past 2003. Additional analyses (not shown) betoken that, similar the lesser 10%, the important transfers are social security, supplemental security, and public aid. From Tabular array one, we see that these families accept a broad age range (the middle 50% of householders are betwixt 28 and 69, the middle fifty% of spouses are between 33 and 66). 61% of householders are female person and but 17.1% are married. More than a fifth live with their unmarried children nether 18. Half of householders had completed the equivalent of a High School educational activity, and over one-half of spouses had not. Similar to the bottom 10% of families, well-nigh householders and spouses were not employed during the calendar week prior to the survey, despite an unemployment charge per unit well below the national average. Equally with the bottom 10%, the majority of householders and spouses were not in the labor forcefulness. Nigh a quarter were retired, and another 26% of householders and 42% of spouses were non in the labor force for "other" reasons.⁷ Of those who were employed, the modal occupations and industries are the same as for families in the bottom ten%: Service occupations in Retail and Construction. Compared to the bottom 10%, families in the lower quartile are slightly older, and more likely to be employed or retired.

Median Family Income and Components- Bottom 25% of Family unit Income

Median family incomes at the superlative of the distribution differ in important respects from those at the bottom. The acme 10% of families are shown in Figure 3. Median family unit incomes are more than than x times those of the bottom quartile, and labor income accounts for over fourscore% of the full. Furthermore, median incomes take steadily increased over the period from just under $120,000 in 1988 to merely over $140,000 in 2003. Property income appears as a very small component (ane-two%). These families are very different from those at the lesser of the income distribution (encounter Tabular array i). Householder and spouse are most the aforementioned median age as families at the bottom of the distribution, merely the age ranges are considerably narrower. The middle 50% of householders are betwixt 39 and 55, their spouses between 38 and 53.

Median Family Income and Components- Top 10% of Family unit Income

These families are overwhelmingly white (xc%) and married (88%). Compared to families at the bottom of the distribution, they are more probable to have children under 18 at dwelling house (42.5% vs 22% and 21% for families at the 10^th and 25^th percentiles, respectively). More than 3-quarters of householders are male (almost twice the percentage of families at the 10^thursday and 25^th income percentiles). Half of householders accept iv years of teaching across high school (the median is sixteen years) and half of spouses have 2-iv years of educational activity beyond high school.

Over 80% of householders were employed during the week prior to the survey as were almost three-quarters of spouses. Very few householders or spouses were unemployed (1.1% and 0.8%, respectively), and relatively few were not in the labor force (12.1% of householders, mostly retired; 23.5% of spouses, mostly for "other" reasons). Modal occupations for both householder and spouse were Executive and Management positions in Professional and Educational Services.

Median incomes for families in the top 1% are almost twice as high every bit for families in the pinnacle x%, and, equally with the top x%, about (between 75% and 85%) are from earnings. Property income is about 10% of family unit income at the start of the period, only declines to about ii% by 2003. At that place is a sharp increment of about 33% in labor income (and virtually 25% in the total) between 1995 and 1996.^eight The same rapid rise in labor incomes at the aforementioned time, and the same slow decline in belongings incomes were observed in entirely different data (income taxation data for households) by Piketty and Saez (2006), who interpret this blueprint equally a precipitous increment in executive compensation: "elevation executives…replaced meridian capital owners …at the top of the income hierarchy" in the U.S. (p. 204. Cf. Piketty and Saez, 2003; Kaplan and Rauh, 2007). Our data are not sufficiently detailed to confirm or abnegate this explanation. We note that our data practise non show "capital owners" at "the top" of the income distribution, only there are few extremely high earners in the CPS (Kaplan and Rauh [2007] report incomes in the tens of millions of dollars). Because our results are for medians of meridian-coded information, the sharp ascension nosotros find is consequent with this interpretation.

Families in the acme 1% are similar to those in the top 10%: overwhelmingly white, married, ii-earner families with children under 18 at dwelling (See Table 1). They are slightly older and better educated (median schooling for both householder and spouse is 4 years beyond loftier schoolhouse). As with the superlative x%, over eighty% of householders are employed, every bit are seventy% of spouses. As well similar to the top i%, about 1/8 of householders and one/4 of spouses are not in the labor force. The majority of these householders are retired, and the majority of these spouses are out of the labor forcefulness for "other" reasons. Modal occupations are Executive and Administrative, Medicine, Law, and Teaching. Modal industries are Professional, Wellness, and Educational Services.

Families in the superlative 0.five% appear almost identical to those in the top1% (come across Effigy 5 and Table 1). They have somewhat higher total incomes simply comparable labor incomes. Labor income is a smaller proportion of the full. Belongings income makes upwards the deviation, though its contribution is relatively small. Trends in income components are the aforementioned as for income components of the top 1%, a large jump in labor income between 1995 and 1996, and slowly declining property income. Bated from their higher property income, non much distinguishes families in the top 0.5% from those in the top 1%. Age and educational distributions are the same, as are distributions of gender, race, marital status, children under 18, and employment status. Modal occupations differ merely in that at that place's a slight shift away from Police and Teaching and a corresponding shift into Insurance and Real Estate.

Median Family Income and Components- Summit 0.5% of Family Income

Median family unit income and income sources for the "Property Aristocracy" are presented in Figure 6. Post-obit Lenski (1966), this elite includes families whose income from wealth is at least twice the median family income from all sources. This elite comprises 0.5% of the families in our data, but these are non the families at the 99.five percentile of family income. From Figure 6, we see that median family income is considerably lower, that labor income is a much smaller component, and that belongings income is a much larger component (over one-half) of the full. Transfers are a very small (2-three%) source of income for these families, mostly social security and retirement income. Labor income rises throughout the period, reflected in a small up trend in the total.

Median Family Income and Components- Lenski's "Property Elite"

It is peculiarly notable that, unlike the incomes of the top ane% and 0.5%, labor income does not exhibit the sharp rise between 1995 and 1996, and property income does not showroom the dull decline. If Piketty and Saez (2003, 2006) are correct in their estimation of these patterns, the "property elite" are not well-compensated executives, the "working rich," but more than closely guess the "coupon-clipping rentiers" (Picketty and Saez, 2003, p. 17).

These families are considerably older than those at the summit of the family income distribution (25% of householders and spouses are over 71 and 68, respectively). Similar families at the top, these families are white (95%), married or widowed (86%)⁹, with fewer children at home. In dissimilarity to families at the top of the income distribution, just under half are employed (fifty% and 40% of householders and spouses, respectively). Nearly of those not employed are retired. This may business relationship for the relatively big share of property income that they receive. These families written report the same occupations as families at the top of the distribution, suggesting that the "property elite" are the top-income families a decade subsequently.

Summary

Our examination of the lesser and top of the family income distribution found:

At the Bottom

Looking at medians, transfer income is a major income source for families in the 10^th and 25^thursday percentiles. Transfer income was largely from social security, supplemental security, and public assistance.

Families in the ten^th and 25^thursday percentiles are nearly 25% non-white, over threescore% of householders are female, less than xx% are married, and just over twenty% included children nether xviii. The inter-quartile age range of householders and spouses is quite wide, approximately thirty years. In terms of historic period, these families are quite diverse, consisting of both younger and older adults.

Typically, householders and spouses have, at most, a high-schoolhouse didactics. Less than a third of householders and spouses were working in the week prior to the survey. Many are disabled (vii-12%), many are retired (17-25%), near are not in the labor forcefulness. Typical jobs are low-level service or sales occupations.

At the Peak

For families at the top of the income distribution, the major income source is employment. Property income is a relatively small and declining component of income for these families. In 1996, labor income sharply increased from the previous year, in both amount and as a proportion of the total, for families in the pinnacle 1% and 0.5%, only non for families in the top 10% of the income distribution.

Families in the pinnacle 10%, 1%, and 0.five% are overwhelmingly white and married, with two income earners. Half of householders were in their early 40s to late-50s. Nigh forty% have children under eighteen (and 13-sixteen% take children under vi). Most have a college-level educational activity and most are employed. Typical jobs for the summit 10% of families are Executive and Management occupations; typical jobs for the pinnacle one% and 0.v% are in these occupations, and too in Medicine, Constabulary, and Teaching.

"Property Elite"

The "property aristocracy" are high income families who receive most half of their income from wealth. Unlike the height 10%, 1%, and 0.5%, labor income is a relatively minor, but increasing, proportion of the total. These families also receive transfer income, in the class of social security and retirement. Their median family income is higher than that of the top 10%, merely lower than the peak i% and 0.five%.

Families in this "holding elite" are typically older than families in the highest percentiles of the income distribution but, like them, are predominantly white and married (if one includes the widowed). They have fewer children living with them, and a larger proportion were not working in the calendar week prior to the survey. Most of those are retired.

Conclusions and Implications

As anticipated, families at the bottom of the income distribution are disproportionately not-white, female, and non-married. These families consist of both young and onetime adults, with loftier-school educations or less, in low-level service occupations. Many are disabled, many are retired. Much of their income is in the form of transfers.

Also as anticipated, families at the tiptop of the income distribution are typically white and married. Householders and spouses are typically middle-age with college educations, employed in professional person service and managerial occupations. Although not directly comparable (families at the top of the income distribution are non the same equally those at the top of the wealth distribution), these findings are consequent with Keister's (2000, Table four-4) findings with respect to the wealth distribution: the wealthiest 1% of households are predominantly white, center aged, with at to the lowest degree a college education.

Not predictable is the small-scale contribution of holding income to the total family income at the peak, and the correspondingly big contribution of income from employment. Our findings do non support the argument that wealth is a primary source of income for families at the highest percentiles. The meridian 0.5% of families received a median of around $xl,000 in property income in 1988 (of a median family unit income of $240,000), just this declined to $5,000 by 2003 (of a median family income of about $300,000). The "property aristocracy" do receive over one-half of their median family income from wealth, only that is by construction. Importantly, the highest income families during this period in the U.S. were not the "holding elite".

The reject in property income and increment in labor income amongst the highest income families does support the claim of Piketty and Saez (2003, 2006) that executive bounty has increased apace in recent years, while income from wealth has gradually declined. The reject in belongings income is also consistent with Keister'due south (2000) finding that mean fiscal wealth of the height 1% declined between 1989 and 1995 (Table 4-ane), and median cyberspace worth for families with income of $100,000 or more declined from 1983-1995 (Table eight-5).

How are we to understand the differences between families in the top ten%, 1% and 0.5% of the income distribution? Those in the tiptop 1% are slightly older and better educated than those in the elevation x%. Nosotros can speculate that those in the superlative one% are maybe further forth in their careers and occupy college executive positions. This would be consequent with Picketty and Saez's (2003, 2006) explanation of the rapid rising in labor income for the meridian 1%.but not for the top decile. Alternatively, the tiptop one% may exist more likely to exist in the contained professions (Medicine, Police). The only notable difference between families in the top 1% and 0.5% are occupational. We can speculate that the top 0.5% of families are more than likely to be self-employed instead of salaried, or simply higher-upwards in the executive hierarchy. These are areas of future research.

Our finding that age and retirement condition are the major distinctions between the "holding elite" and those at the very top of the family unit income distribution is unexpected. Information technology is, however, consequent with Keister's (2000, p. 232) finding of a life-cycle process whereby salaried and/or entrepreneurial professionals and executives invest loftier earnings during their careers, then depict income from these investments later retirement. Is this life-cycle process consistent with the theoretical pregnant of "property elite"?

Lenski (1966, p.340) uses "holding elite" to "empathise the political activities of the propertied class [those who control economic resources]" in market systems. These "elite" are a "tiny minority" whose wealth constitutes an of import source of economical and political ability.

From this perspective, the extreme concentration of wealth in the U.S. has suggested that, despite the trappings of electoral democracy, real political power is concentrated among a small class of wealthy individuals and families (Domhoff 2002, Affiliate 3; Lindblom 1977, Chapter 17). But the composition of this grade is contentious. Does this form consists of a discrete set up of individuals with a mutual grade culture that reproduces itself from one generation to the next, (east.thou., Domhoff 2002), or of a ready of positions with mutual interests in property rights and "free enterprise," that replicate over fourth dimension along with other societal structures (e.grand., Lindblom 1977)? It seems to us that a life-cycle process is consistent with either conceptualization. Families use their wealth to advance their children's prospects – eastward.chiliad., through institutional mechanisms described by Domhoff (2002). Alternatively, careers advance through merit or through luck..

Adjudication of these conceptualizations of a propertied course requires detailed information on wealth mobility, and on inheritance processes. We know of no existing information adequate for this purpose, only promise that connected interest in wealth research volition promote the evolution of longitudinal wealth databases. .

​

Median Family Income and Components- Tiptop 1% of Family Income

Acknowledgments

We thank Don Hernandez, Kate Strully and two anonymous reviewers for comments on a previous draft.

Footnotes

ⁱKinnickell (2006) includes vehicles as assets, only we regard these as consumer durables instead. The bottom 50% of families endemic 26.viii% of the value of vehicles in 2004 (Kinnickell, 2006, Table 11a).

²Detailed income sources are non bachelor prior to 1988.

³Details of the aggregation are available on asking.

⁴These were retrieved from <http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/income03/cpiurs.html> on ane/14/07.

^fiveThe large gaps between median total income and the sum of the median sources of income is due to the fact that the median of a sum is not the same every bit the sum of medians.

⁶Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which took effect in 1997, may be partly responsible for the sudden drop in transfer income for the lesser 10% after 1997.

^seven"Other" includes armed forces, unemployed and not looking for work, and other.

^eightIn 1996, the CPS changed some aspects of its sampling procedures, only this discontinuity remains after aligning for sampling proportions using the family unit weights included with the information.

⁹x.6 percent are widowed (not shown).

A previous version of this paper was presented at the Almanac Meetings of the American Sociological Clan in Boston, August 4, 2008.

Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accustomed for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please annotation that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the periodical pertain.

Contributor Data

Lawrence E. Raffalovich, Department of Folklore University at Albany, SUNY.

Shannon M. Monnat, Department of Sociology University of Nevada - Las Vegas.

Hui-shien Tsao, Center for Social and Demographic Analysis University at Albany, SUNY.

REFERENCES

• Browne Irene. Explaining the Black-White Gap in Labor Forcefulness Participation among Women Heading Households. American Sociological Review. 1997;62:236–252. [Google Scholar]
• Bureau of Labor Statistics [Retrieved six/25/09]. 2009. http://world wide web.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat1.pdf.
• CPS utilities [electronic resource]: March files. Unicon Research Corporation; Santa Monica, CA: 2004. [Google Scholar]
• Electric current Population Survey Design and Methodology. Technical Paper 63RV. [Retrieved 1/fourteen/07]. 2002. http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/tp63rv.pdf.
• Domhoff G. William. Who Rules America? Fourth Edition McGraw-Loma; Boston: 2002. [Google Scholar]
• Gates WH, Sr., Collins C. Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why Americans Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes. Beacon Press; Boston: 2002. [Google Scholar]
• Kaplan Steven Due north., Rauh Joshua. Wall Street and Master Street: What Contributes to the Rise in the Highest Incomes? [retrieved 1/14/07]. 2007. NBER Working Paper 13270. http://www.nber.org/papers/w13270.
• Keister Lisa A. Wealth in America: Trends in Wealth Inequality. Cambridge Academy Printing; Cambridge: 2000. [Google Scholar]
• Kennickell Arthur B. Currents and Undercurrents: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth, 1989-2004. [Retreived 1/14/07]. 2006. http://world wide web.federalreserve.gov/pubs/oss/oss2/papers/concentration.2004.5.pdf.
• Lenski Gerhard. Income Stratification in the United States. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. 1984;iii:173–205. [Google Scholar]
• Lenski Gerhard. Power and Privilege. McGraw-Hill; New York: 1966. [Google Scholar]
• Lindblom Charles. Politics and Markets. Basic; New York: 1977. [Google Scholar]
• Oliver Melvin Fifty., Shapiro Thomas M. Black Wealth/White Wealth: a New Perspective on Racial Inequality. Routledge; New York: 1997. [Google Scholar]
• Piketty Thomas, Saez Emmanuel. Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998. The Quarterly Journal of Economic science. 2003;98:1–39. [Google Scholar]
• Piketty Thomas, Saez Emmanuel. The Evolution of Elevation Incomes: A Historical and International Perspective. American Economical Clan Papers and Proceedings. 2006;96:00–205. [Google Scholar]
• Rivlin AM. Reviving the American Dream: the Economic system, the States, and the Federal Government. The Brookings Institute; Washington, D.C.: 1992. [Google Scholar]
• Shapiro Thomas. The Subconscious Price of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality. Oxford; New York: 2004. [Google Scholar]
• Wolf Edward N. Top Heavy. The New York Printing; New York: 2002. [Google Scholar]

bosanquettionvits.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2805913/

Share this post