Attention Economy


Thursday, November 16, 2023

Income/Wealth Inequality and US Politics

Bidenomics Has a Mortal Enemy and It Isn’t Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/opinion/why-voters-arent-buying-bidens-boasts-about-bidenomics.html
The most recent data show that the top 1 percent now owns 31.4 percent of American wealth, more than that of the entire bottom 90 percent. 

Poor men south of Richmond? Why much of the rural South is in economic crisis
https://theconversation.com/poor-men-south-of-richmond-why-much-of-the-rural-south-is-in-economic-crisis-213820

Perspectives on the Labor Share by Loukas Karabarbounis
https://www.nber.org/papers/w31854
Abstract
As of 2022, the share of U.S. income accruing to labor is at its lowest level since the Great Depression. Updating previous studies with more recent observations, I document the continuing decline of the labor share for the United States, other countries, and various industries. I discuss how changes in technology and product, labor, and capital markets affect the trend of the labor share. I also examine its relationship with other macroeconomic trends, such as rising markups, higher concentration of economic activity, and globalization. I conclude by offering some perspectives on the economic and policy implications of the labor share decline.

More unequal we stand? Inequality dynamics in the United States, 1967–2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2023.07.014
https://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr648.pdf
Abstract
Heathcote et al. (2010) conducted an empirical analysis of several dimensions of inequality in the United States over the years 1967-2006, using publicly-available survey data. This paper expands the analysis, and extends it to 2021. We find that since the early 2000s, the college wage premium has stopped growing, and the race wage gap has stalled. However, the gender wage gap has kept shrinking. Both individual- and household-level income inequality have continued to rise at the top, while the cyclical component of inequality dominates dynamics below the median. Inequality in consumption expenditures has remained remarkably stable over time. Income pooling within the family and redistribution by the government have enormous impacts on the dynamics of household-level inequality, with the role of the family diminishing and that of the government growing over time. In particular, largely due to generous government transfers, the COVID recession has been the first downturn in fifty years in which inequality in disposable income and consumption actually declined.