The Average Growth Rate in the U.S.

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Aryou looking at pretax income all all al including some or many forms of government transfers. What we've tried to do in our researches is to have a really clear distinction between what's income before any form of government intervention. Another difference is, how do you deal with changes in household size, changes in marriage rates and divorce rates? A lot of the analysis in inequality no is conducted at the household level,. which can be a problem if household size changes - as has happened in thewest.

Gabriel Zucman of the University of California, Berkeley talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his research on inequality and the distribution of income in the United States over the last 35 years. Zucman finds that there has been no change in income for the bottom half of the income distribution over this time period with large gains going to the top 1%. The conversation explores the robustness of this result to various assumptions and possible explanations for the findings.