Income Distribution Trends in the United States
This week we take a look at income distribution trends in the United States. Before we start, we should make clear what an income percentile is: Percentiles divide the data into 100 equal groups. So for example if we say that a person is on the 75th income percentile (75th%), what it means is that if we gather 100 people from the general population inside a room, 75 of those will have a lower income than that person, while the other 25 of them will have a greater income. There has been much talk lately about income inequality and the top 1% but just how far has the working class been left behind by the current economic status quo? According to research from RAND.org, if workers below the top 10% of the income distribution, had grown at the same rate as the overall economy since 1975, they would have collectively earned $2.5 trillion more in 2018, 67% higher than their actual 2018 earnings. The income of wo...
