 Income inequality and the labour market in Britain and the USRichard Blundell (), Robert Joyce, Agnes Norris Keiller and James Ziliak Journal of Public Economics, 2018, vol. 162, issue C, 48-62 Abstract: We study household income inequality in both Great Britain and the United States and the interplay between labour market earnings and the tax system. While both Britain and the US have witnessed secular increases in 90/10 male earnings inequality over the last three decades, this measure of inequality in net family income has declined in Britain while it has risen in the US. To better understand these comparisons, we examine the interaction between labour market earnings in the family, assortative mating, the tax and welfare-benefit system and household income inequality. We find that both countries have witnessed sizeable changes in employment which have primarily occurred on the extensive margin in the US and on the intensive margin in Britain. Increases in the generosity of the welfare system in Britain played a key role in equalizing net income growth across the wage distribution, whereas the relatively weak safety net available to non-workers in the US mean this growing group has seen particularly adverse developments in their net incomes. Keywords: Inequality; Family income; Earnings (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:162:y:2018:i:c:p:48-62 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.04.001 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Public Economics is currently edited by R. Boadway and J. Poterba More articles in Journal of Public Economics from Elsevier |
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