We all know that economic inequality has increased in recent decades, but just who has won and who has lost are harder questions to answer. A new study suggests that, even before the coronavirus pandemic, much of the increase in inequality was generational. People born earlier in the post-World War II decades experienced faster income growth than people born later.
The study, published by the Brookings Institution, compared people in two 15-year stretches — 1967-1981 and 2002-2016 — when they were generally in their prime working years. The oldest members of the first group are mostly baby boomers. They achieved a 27 percent gain in their median incomes during the 15-year span, adjusted for inflation. By contrast, the oldest members of the second group were mostly millennials. Their inflation-adjusted gain was only 8 percent.
Just what has caused this skewing of incomes is a controversial subject, but the report’s findings generally agree with many other studies. College graduates do relatively well, and labor markets have become more turbulent. In the second 15-year period, 12 percent of people suffered at least one 25 percent drop of income. In the earlier period, the comparable figure was 4 percent.
Continue reading… “The rise of the upper middle class”
