Data

• Distribution of Incomes, Census Bureau, 1992

Analysis (in chronological order):

• Blacks in America -- 1992, "Statistical Brief," May 1994

  The Black population in the United States numbered 31.4 million in March 1992, comprising 13 percent of the Nation's total. This Brief uses data collected by the March 1992 Current Population Survey (CPS) to explore the state of Blacks in America. It examines how their situation changed between March 1980 and 1992, as well as how their condition compares with that of the White population.

• 'Bell Curve' Critics Say Early I.Q. Isn't Destiny, November 9, 1994

  [Most] social scientists who have looked closely at the issues do believe that the pessimistic determinism of "The Bell Curve" is unwarranted. ... "The evidence is overwhelming," says Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution. "There is good reason to be optimistic that intervention can work."

• Gap in Wealth In U.S. Called Widest in West, April 17, 1995

  New studies on the growing concentration of American wealth and income challenge a cherished part of the country's self-image: They show that rather than being an egalitarian society, the United States has become the most economically stratified of industrial nations.

• America's Tide: Lifting the Yachts, Swamping the Rowboats, June 25, 1995

  During the early postwar era, most American families could expect to see their incomes grow from one year to the next. During both the 1950s and 1960s, median family income adjusted for inflation rose about a third. With incomes growing this fast, few people (and even fewer politicians) bothered to inquire very closely into the distribution of income. ... But since the early 1970s ... incomes have not grown at all, and for families near the bottom of the distribution, incomes have done even worse -- they have shrunk.

• Widest Gap in Incomes? Research Points to U. S., October 27, 1995

  The income gap between rich and poor was wider in the United States during the 1980's than in any other large industrialized country, according to the most comprehensive international study ever released on income distribution. ... [The] study, which was commissioned by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ... suggests that the relatively high levels of inequality ... persisted into the early 1990's.

• Only One Side Fighting, Winning Class Warfare, October 30, 1995

  Not since the Depression have conditions seemed so ripe for a true class-based liberal movement. Real wages have fallen over the last two decades, while income inequality has risen sharply. Employers shift manufacturing jobs to whichever country offers the cheapest labor, and unions are too weak to stop them. Meanwhile, corporate lobbyists help the Republican Congress draft bills that jeopardize occupational health and safety rules and cut back the earned-income tax credit for low-paid workers. Republicans call this line of argument class warfare, but only one side is fighting, and it's theirs.

• American Inequality: Its History And Scary Future, December 19, 1995

  With the wealthiest 20 percent of households receiving a greater and greater share of national income, American society is more unequal now than it was 25 years ago. ... [The trend represents] an intensification of, historical conditions. This is not to argue that we should be complacent about the rise in economic inequality, but a deeper historical perspective could help Americans think more precisely about what that trend threatens and what levels of inequality are intolerable.

• Singing at the Underclass, December 23, 1995

  Economists and statisticians squabble endlessly about family incomes, but there is now widespread agreement that, since the early 1970s, inequality has grown dramatically. The richest fifth of Americans has thrived; the middle classes have either held their ground or slipped a bit; the poorest have . . . well, fallen off a cliff. ... The Republican revolutionaries who have been running Capitol Hill for almost a year would like to believe that the bottom fifth does not exist.