Using a wide variety of data on family incomes, taxes, wages, unemployment, wealth, and poverty, this book closely examines the impact of the economy on the living standards of the United States. An executive summary gives an overview of the economic realities that characterize the state of the working nation. Other introductory materials include…

A marked transformation in the U.S. economy has yet to occur. The living standards of most working families have neither fully recovered from the recession of the early 1990s nor benefitted from the overall growth in productivity. (Author)

Earnings inequality increased sharply in the early 1980s, tapered off in the later 1980s, and reaccelerated in the 1990s. Although inequality increased overall and for men and women separately, a combined analysis overlooks differences in the labor market dynamics of men and women. (Author)

Wage analyses of several government surveys suggest that substantial, broad-based reductions in real wages occurred in the final years of the 1980s recovery. (Data sources are the hourly compensation data from the Employment Cost Index series and wage data from the Current Population Survey.) The wages of those who lost the most in the 1980s (high…

This report examines trends in income distribution from the late 1970s to the late 1990s in the 50 states. It is based on before-tax income for families from the Census Bureau's March Current Population Survey public use files. All figures are expressed in 1997 dollars and adjusted for inflation. The paper examines the long term trend from the…

Numerous sources of data about family incomes, taxes, wages, unemployment, wealth, and poverty were used to analyze the impact of the economy on living standards in the United States in 1994-1995. It was discovered that most individuals in the United States are worse off in the 1990s than they were at the end of the 1970s. Between 1979 and 1989,…