Poverty and Inequality

Inequality Trends Economic Security Program Successes

Report

A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

January 13, 2020 | Chad Stone, Danilo Trisi, Arloc Sherman and Jennifer Beltrán

The years from the end of World War II into the 1970s were ones of substantial economic growth and broadly shared prosperity. Beginning in the 1970s, economic growth slowed and the income gap widened.

Deep Poverty Among Children Rose in TANF’s First Decade, Then Fell as Other Programs Strengthened

February 27, 2020

Blog

Census: Income Gains Uneven Across States, Racial and Ethnic Groups

October 8, 2019

Report

Child Poverty Falls to Record Low, Comprehensive Measure Shows Stronger Government Policies Account for Long-Term Improvement

October 5, 2017

Report

Government’s Pandemic Response Turned a Would-Be Poverty Surge Into a Record Poverty Decline

August 29, 2023 | Danilo Trisi

Report

Deep Poverty Among Children Rose in TANF’s First Decade, Then Fell as Other Programs Strengthened

February 27, 2020 | Danilo Trisi and Matt Saenz

New on this Topic

Report

What to Watch for in Next Week’s Census Data on Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance in 2022

September 7, 2023

Statement

In Pandemic’s Second Year, Government Policies Helped Drive Child Poverty Rate to a Record Low, Cut Uninsured Rate, New Census Data Show

September 13, 2022

Report

What to Know About Next Week’s Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance Figures for 2021

September 8, 2022

Statement

Parrott: Today’s Census Data Show That Vigorous Policies Kept 53 Million People Above Poverty Line in 2020

September 14, 2021

Report

What to Expect in This Week’s Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance Figures for 2020

September 13, 2021

Research Note

Research Note: How the Pandemic Could Skew Official Poverty Figures for 2019

September 8, 2020

Policy Basics

The gap between rich and poor has been growing for decades, reaching levels not seen since the “Roaring ‘20s.”

We track income trends, and we analyze tax and spending proposals for their effects on income inequality. We promote policies that would help offset rising inequality, and we oppose policies that would make inequality worse.

Experts

Claire Zippel

Illustrating Income Inequality, Part 2: Top Earners Have Outpaced Rest Since 1979

In our first post in this series, we showed how after a period of shared prosperity in the early postwar decades, income disparities widened substantially beginning in the 1970s. In this post,...

Illustrating Income Inequality, Part 1: Shared Prosperity Gives Way to Income Disparities

The economic fortunes of the wealthy and everyone else have diverged sharply in recent decades. It wasn’t always this way; from the end of World War II into the 1970s, income growth was shared...

A Big-Picture Look at Inequality

Inequality is “big in the wonkosphere” these days, Brookings’ Richard Reeves notes, and our recently updated “Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality” provides...

Things Looking Up at the Top, New Figures Show

Incomes at the top have started rebounding from their sharp decline in the financial crisis and Great Recession, new figures from the Congressional Budget Office confirm — just as they rebounded...

5 Things We Learned From Census About Poverty, Income, and Health Insurance

Here are five things we took away from the data that the Census Bureau released last week on poverty, income, and health insurance coverage in America. The economic recovery...

“Gini Index” From Census Confirms Rising Inequality Over Four Decades

As our statement on Tuesday’s Census Bureau report notes, a key measure of inequality known as the Gini index was tied for its highest level on record in 2012, further evidence of worsening...

Income Inequality Remains at Record High, New Census Figures Show

The shares of the nation’s income going to each of the bottom 60 percent of households in 2012 remained at 2011’s record low levels in data that go back to 1967, today’s Census Bureau report...

Greenstein Statement on Today’s Census Figures

CBPP President Robert Greenstein has issued a statement on the Census Bureau’s 2012 figures on poverty, income, and health insurance coverage. Here’s the opening: The new Census figures...

Top Incomes Shot Up Last Year, New Figures Show

The average before-tax income of the richest U.S. households rose sharply in 2012, according to an analysis of preliminary 2012 tax return data by economist Emmanuel Saez. By some measures, the top...

Bernstein: The Audacity of the Fight for Higher Wages

In his latest post for the New York Times’ Economix, CBPP Senior Fellow Jared Bernstein points to the struggles of low-income workers and what to do about them, noting: Something’s...

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