how to reduce income inequality
dispersions of income inequality are an ongoing area of analysis for both local and global governing institutions the imf and world bank have a goal to help improve the income of the lowest 10 of earners in all countries through their missions relating to financial stability long term economic development and poverty reduction globally new innovations in financial technologies and production are helping to improve the banking services for the world s lowest income earners as a worldwide initiative for financial inclusion is underway in addition income inequality will be addressed more successfully when political economic and social leaders can agree on basic approaches to its improvement income inequality in the united statesincome inequality in the u s has been increasing since the 1970s throughout the 20th century and up to the present this inequality has been exacerbated by government tax and labor policies and ongoing discrimination by race and gender a weakening middle class has also contributed to income inequality 2the organizations below conduct research and produce analysis reports on various examples of income inequality income disparity and income distributions in the u s in an analysis of 60 years of economic data the urban institute showed that the poorest got poorer while the richest got much richer between 1963 and 2022 7the urban institute also researches the racial and ethnic wealth gap in the u s the organization reported that white families in 1963 had amassed a median wealth of approximately 45 000 more than families of color by 2019 the median wealth for white families increased to approximately 153 000 more than latinx families and 165 000 more than black families 8the federal reserve provides a quarterly distributional financial accounts report this report shows wealth distributions for u s households as of the first quarter of 2024 the federal reserve showed the following distributions of wealth across the u s 9in december 2023 the economic policy institute released a report on disparities between wage growth across different income levels for those in the bottom 90 wages grew just 32 9 from 1979 to 2022 for those in the top 1 wages grew 171 7 for those in the top 0 1 wages grew 344 4 10there can be many factors associated with this trend including salary stagnation for wage earning americans tax cuts for the richest americans a loss of manufacturing jobs and a soaring stock market that inflated the worth of corporate executives and hedge fund managers however it s noteworthy that wage inequality may also shrink due to declines in the stock market which occurred in 2022 10post recession companies are also investing heavily to hire and keep workers with specialized skills in fields such as engineering and healthcare this has caused reductions or new automation takeovers in other functions pushing down wages for workers in less competitive jobs furthermore epi data tracks wages by segment on a regular basis as of 2023 it showed the following averages for white black and hispanic workers 11income inequality is an economic concept that tends to hit some segments of populations harder than others with significant wage gaps often identified for women black people and hispanic people working in the u s according to a study of incomes for full time workers by the institute for women s policy research in 2022 women of all races and ethnicities were paid an average of 83 of the salaries paid to men when both part and full time incomes are included women earn just 77 4 cents for each dollar a man earned the same report also broke down earnings by race and gender it noted that compared to the median weekly earnings of white men working full time hispanic women earned 61 4 of that amount black women earned 67 4 and white women earned 84 2 12data from the pew research center also identifies income inequalities by gender in 2022 according to its latest analysis of hourly earnings of full and part time employees women earned an average of 82 of what men earned this is not much of an improvement over the pay gap in 2002 when women earned 80 as much as men 13an income gap refers to the difference in income earned between demographic segments 