Income Growth and its Distribution from Eisenhower to Obama: The Growing Importance of In-Kind Transfers (1959-2016)
James Elwell,
Kevin Corinth and
Richard Burkhauser
No 26439, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc
Abstract:
Using Census Bureau estimates of the market value of in-kind transfers and Current Population Survey (ASEC-CPS) data over the period 1979 to 2007, Burkhauser et al. (2012b) construct measures of income and its distribution. We extend their work forward to 2016 and back to 1967 using ASEC-CPS data and decennial Census data for 1959. With this newly linked data set, we provide a fresh look at the twenty-year period 1959 to 1979 that encompasses the inauguration of New Frontier and Great Society programs as well as the first survey-based look at levels and trends in income and its distribution from 1959 to 2016. We find that the dramatic decline in the market income of the middle class (measured as the median American tax unit or the mean value of the middle quintile of American tax units) began in 1969. However, we find that this decline was more than offset by government tax and transfer programs—especially in-kind transfers. Conventional measures of median income and income inequality that exclude the market value of in-kind transfers will substantially understate the impact of government policies in offsetting the stagnation of median market income growth and the rise in market income inequality since 1969.
JEL-codes: D31 H24 J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
Note: LS PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)
Published as in "United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality" ed Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26439.pdf (application/pdf)
Related works:
Working Paper: Income Growth and its Distribution from Eisenhower to Obama: The Growing Importance of In-Kind Transfers (1959-2016) (2019) 
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26439
Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26439
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().