« NY Times: Are Law Schools and Bar Exams Necessary? | Main | American Culture and the Estate Tax Consensus »
October 26, 2011
CBO: Trends in the Distribution of Household Income, 1979-2007
Congressional Budget Office, Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007 (Oct. 2011):After-tax income for the highest-income households grew more than it did for any other group. (After-tax income is income after federal taxes have been deducted and government transfers—which are payments to people through such programs as Social Security and Unemployment Insurance—have been added.) CBO finds that, between 1979 and 2007, income grew by:
- 275% for the top 1% of households
- 65% for the next 19%
- 40% for the next 60%
- 18% for the bottom 20%
October 26, 2011 in Gov't Reports, Tax | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c4eab53ef01539297fc39970b
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference CBO: Trends in the Distribution of Household Income, 1979-2007:
Comments
The numbers would be considerably different if the trend went through to 2011 and also included the effect of closely held companies changing forms to pass through entities following the 1986 Tax reform act. The lack of consideration of either makes the statistics misleading.
Posted by: Michael Tyson | Oct 26, 2011 1:07:06 PM
Why do you suppose that CBO chose those particular years?
Posted by: ColoComment | Oct 26, 2011 3:17:25 PM
Concise rebuttal at http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2011/10/rich-getting-poorer.html
Posted by: AMTbuff | Oct 26, 2011 6:30:31 PM
According to the CBO blog post accompanying the report - http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=2909 - the Chairman of the Senate committee on finance commissioned the report.
He is a moderate democrat, so I doubt he did it for partisan reasons, but you never know.
Posted by: michael Tyson | Oct 26, 2011 9:11:07 PM
The original CBO data showed what happened between 1979 and 2007. The "concise rebuttal" posted years of 2007-2009. Apples and oranges? You betcha! Cherry picking? Count on it! What you are likely to "see" depends upon the frame with which you are presented.
Posted by: Labored | Nov 1, 2011 2:15:54 PM
