Growing Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the income gap is increasing because of several factors: The greater demand for more highly-skilled workers, the increasing number of single parent families and the growing number of immigrants. It discusses how other minor factors include lack of available jobs, the declining minimum wage and declining unionization among men.

From the Paper:

"In Are the Rich Cleaning Up? Cait Murphy (2000) presents a picture of the growing income gap between the rich and the poor in the United States. From the 1970's on the gap has been growing steadily, with the rich controlling a greater percentage of the total wealth. Murphy (2000) looks to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to estimate just how large the income gap has grown over the past 30 years. He says the cash earnings of the poorest fifth of the U.S. population fell about 9%, middle-class earnings rose 8%, and upper-income earnings, 43%. When these figures are adjusted for population differences, taxes, Medicare and Medicaid, and income not in the form of wages, the bottom fifth of the population takes in 9.4% of national income, and the top fifth takes in 39.6%."

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