Changing Inequality

Rebecca M. Blank offers the first comprehensive analysis of an economic trend that has been reshaping the United States over the past three decades: rapidly rising income inequality. In clear language, she provides an overview of how and why the level and distribution of income and wealth has changed since 1979, sets this situation within its historical context, and investigates the forces that are driving it. Among other factors, Blank looks closely at changes within families, including women’s increasing participation in the work force. The book includes some surprising findings—for example, that per-person income has risen sharply among almost all social groups, even as income has become more unequally distributed. Looking toward the future, Blank suggests that while rising inequality will likely be with us for many decades to come, it is not an inevitable outcome. Her book considers what can be done to address this trend, and also explores the question: why should we be concerned about this phenomenon?

Rebecca M. Blank is former Robert Kerr Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Dean of the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. Most recently, she coedited Insufficient Funds: Savings, Asset, Credit and Banking Among Low-Income Households and Working and Poor: How Economic and Policy Changes are Affecting Low-Wage Workers. She is also the author of It Takes a Nation: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty, among other books.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part I. Changes in Income and Earnings
1. A Broader Look at Changing Inequality
2. Changing Inequality in Annual Earnings and Its Components
3. Changing Inequality in Total Income and Its Components
4. Understanding These Changes

Part II. Can Inequality be Reduced?
5. How Economic Shocks Change Income Distribution
6. Ways to Reduce Inequality (and Their Limits)
7. Changing Inequality in the United States Today

Appendix 1. Details of the Chapter 2 Simulation and Appendix Figures
Appendix 2. Income Components by Decile
Appendix 3. Details of the Chapter 4 Simulations
Appendix 4. Details of the Chapter 6 Simulations

Notes
References
Index