Income and Wealth

Alan Reynolds

• Publisher: Greenwood
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN:
  9780313336881
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780313063558
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Economics

Why some people are rich and others poor can be explained in a number of ways. Income and Wealth focuses on who gets what and why. It explains the dynamics of income generation, how it is measured, and how such dramatic disparities in distribution come about. The book first defines various characteristics of income, with an emphasis on the gap between the rich and the poor, and reviews several theories to explain the disparities. Subsequent chapters discuss such timely topics as the vanishing middle class and the sky-high salaries of CEOs, Hollywood stars, and athletes. The final chapters consider the implications of policies, such as the minimum wage, taxes, immigration, and trade quotas, and expand the discussion to consider international comparisons. Featuring graphs and charts, a glossary of key terms, and a listing of references and resources, Income and Wealth explains the intricate, and often controversial, effects of economic policies on individuals, families, and communities. Moreover, it shows how the numbers can be manipulated by policymakers, pundits, journalists, and academics to promote various agendas—and shows readers how to recognize hyberbole and make better-informed decisions.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Illustrations
• Series Foreword by Wesley B. Truitt
• Introduction
• 1. Concepts and Measures
• 2. Work Matters
• 3. A Vanishing Middle Class?
• 4. The Wage Stagnation Thesis
• 5. The Top 1 Percent
• 6. CEOs and Celebrities
• 7. Wealth Is Not Distributed
• 8. Consumption Inequality, Lifetime Income, and Mobility
• 9. Causes and Cures
• Glossary
• Online Resources
• Index
• TABLES 1.1 Distribution of Persons by Family Type
• TABLES 1.2 Census Bureau Gini Ratios for Pretax, Pretransfer Money Income
• TABLES 1.3 Comparison of Income Distributions Producing the Same Gini Index
• TABLES 1.4 Before-Tax Household Income (in 2004 Dollars)
• TABLES 2.1 Average Household Income by Quintile (and Top 5 Percent) Census Bureau (Estimates in 2004 Dollars)
• TABLES 2.2 Average After-Tax Household Income by Quintile (and Top 5 Percent) Congressional Budget Office (Estimates in 2003 Dollars)
• TABLES 4.1 Full-Time Wage and Salary Workers, 2004
• TABLES 4.2 Ownership of Consumer Goods
• TABLES 5.1 Estimated Income Share of Top 1 Percent
• TABLES 5.2 Dew-Becker and Gordon Estimates of Labor Income (Billions in 2000 Dollars)
• TABLES 5.3 Distribution of Tax-Deferred Account Holders by Marginal Tax Rates, 1998
• TABLES 5.4 Shares of Pretax Personal Income
• TABLES 7.1 Percent of Baby Boomers with Net Worth above $250,000 (in 2001 Dollars)
• TABLES 7.2 The Composition of Household Wealth in 1995 (Percent of Gross Assets)
• TABLES 8.1 Alternative Measures of Inequality (Gini Coefficients)
• TABLES 8.2 Increase in Mean Disposable Income Needed to Move to a Higher Group in 1992–1994
• TABLES 9.1 Number of Manufacturing Jobs (Thousands)
• TABLES 9.2 Average Hourly Earnings in December 2005 by Production or Nonsupervisory Workers
• TABLES 9.3 Maximum Marginal Tax Rates on Individual Income
• FIGURES 1.1 Real Median Income of 4-Person Families and Households, 1975–2003
• FIGURES 1.2 Lorenz Curve for U.S. Households, Pretax and Pretransfer Money Income, 2004
• FIGURES 2.1 Mean Household Income by Number of Earners
• FIGURES 3.1 Minimum Threshold for the Top 20 Percent and Mean Income above That Threshold
• FIGURES 4.1 Real Average Weekly Earnings of Private Nonfarm Production and Nonsupervisory Workers
• FIGURES 4.2 Average Weekly Wages Mislead When Weekly Hours Decline
• FIGURES 4.3 Cumulative Annual Increases in Real Compensation per Hour, Since 1973
• FIGURES 4.4 Real Per Capita Consumption in 2000 dollars, 1929–2004
• FIGURES 5.1 Business Income’s Share of Total Income of Top 1 Percent and Top 0.1 Percent
• FIGURES 6.1 Average CEO Compensation and the S&P 500 Stock Index
• FIGURES 7.1 Average Real Net Worth of Households (Thousands in 2004 Dollars)
• FIGURES 7.2 Share of ‘‘Augmented Wealth’’ Held by the Wealthiest 1 Percent of Households