IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/30229.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Real-Time Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Blanchet
  • Emmanuel Saez
  • Gabriel Zucman

Abstract

This paper constructs high-frequency and timely income distributions for the United States. We develop a methodology to combine the information contained in high-frequency public data sources—including monthly household and employment surveys, quarterly censuses of employment and wages, and monthly and quarterly national accounts statistics—in a unified framework. This allows us to estimate economic growth by income groups, race, and gender consistent with quarterly releases of macroeconomic growth, and to track the distributional impacts of government policies during and in the aftermath of recessions in real time. We test and successfully validate our methodology by implementing it retrospectively back to 1976. Analyzing the Covid-19 pandemic, we find that all income groups recovered their pre-crisis pretax income level within 20 months of the beginning of the recession. Although the recovery was primarily driven by jobs rather than wage growth, real wages experienced significant gains at the bottom of the distribution in 2021 and 2022, highlighting the equalizing effects of tight labor markets. After accounting for taxes and cash transfers, real disposable income for the bottom 50% was nearly 20% higher in 2021 than in 2019, but fell in 2022 as the expansion of the welfare state during the pandemic was rolled back. All estimates are available at https://realtimeinequality.org and are updated with each quarterly release of the national accounts, within a few hours.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Blanchet & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2022. "Real-Time Inequality," NBER Working Papers 30229, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30229
    Note: EFG LS PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nber.org/papers/w30229.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2020. "The Rise of Income and Wealth Inequality in America: Evidence from Distributional Macroeconomic Accounts," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 3-26, Fall.
    2. Matthew Smith & Owen Zidar & Eric Zwick, 2020. "Top Wealth in America: New Estimates and Implications for Taxing the Rich," Working Papers 264, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    3. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2018. "Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 553-609.
    4. Rodgers, Willard L, 1984. "An Evaluation of Statistical Matching," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 2(1), pages 91-102, January.
    5. Patrick Bayer & Kerwin Kofi Charles, 2018. "Divergent Paths: A New Perspective on Earnings Differences Between Black and White Men Since 1940," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1459-1501.
    6. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2022. "Inequalities in the times of a pandemic," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 37(109), pages 5-41.
    7. Thomas Blanchet & Juliette Fournier & Thomas Piketty, 2022. "Generalized Pareto Curves: Theory and Applications," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 68(1), pages 263-288, March.
    8. Facundo Alvaredo & Anthony B Atkinson & Thomas Blanchet & Lucas Chancel & Luis Estevez Bauluz & Matthew Fisher-Post & Ignacio Flores & Bertrand Garbinti & Jonathan Goupille-Lebret & Clara Martínez-Tol, 2021. "Distributional National Accounts Guidelines Methods and Concepts Used in the World Inequality Database," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-03307584, HAL.
    9. David Autor & David Cho & Leland D. Crane & Mita Goldar & Byron Lutz & Joshua Montes & William B. Peterman & David Ratner & Daniel Villar & Ahu Yildirmaz, 2022. "The $800 Billion Paycheck Protection Program: Where Did the Money Go and Why Did It Go There?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(2), pages 55-80, Spring.
    10. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 1-41.
    11. Byoungchan Lee, 2020. "Business Cycles and Earnings Inequality," HKUST CEP Working Papers Series 202001, HKUST Center for Economic Policy.
    12. Ellora Derenoncourt & Claire Montialoux, 2021. "Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(1), pages 169-228.
    13. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2016. "Editor's Choice Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(2), pages 519-578.
    14. Wojciech Kopczuk & Emmanuel Saez & Jae Song, 2010. "Earnings Inequality and Mobility in the United States: Evidence from Social Security Data Since 1937," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(1), pages 91-128.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Drossidis, Theo & Mumtaz, Haroon & Theophilopoulou, Angeliki, 2024. "The distributional effects of oil supply news shocks," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    2. Iris Klinker & Bas ter Weel, 2024. "Wages and employment in the Netherlands, 2017-2023," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 24-042/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    3. Evgenidis, Anastasios & Fasianos, Apostolos, 2023. "Modelling monetary policy’s impact on labour markets under Covid-19," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).
    4. Klinker, Iris & ter Weel, Bas, 2024. "Wages and Employment in the Netherlands, 2017-2023," IZA Discussion Papers 17049, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Thesia I. Garner & Robert S. Martin & Brett Matsumoto & Scott Curtin, 2022. "Distribution of U.S. Personal Consumption Expenditures for 2019: A Prototype Based on Consumer Expenditure Survey Data," Economic Working Papers 557, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    6. Korenman, Sanders & Hyson, Rosemary T., 2023. "Health insurance, labor market shocks, and mental health during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    7. Thomas Blanchet, 2022. "Uncovering the Dynamics of the Wealth Distribution," Working Papers hal-03865295, HAL.
    8. Iris Klinker & Bas Weel, 2024. "Wages and Employment in the Netherlands, 2017–2023," De Economist, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 233-256, September.
    9. Joe LaBriola & Jake J. Hays, 2024. "Absolute Wealth Mobility in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 43(4), pages 1-19, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ellora Derenoncourt & Chi Hyun Kim & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick, 2024. "Unemployment risk, portfolio choice, and the racial wealth gap," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_508, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    2. Ellora Derenoncourt & Chi Hyun Kim & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick, 2024. "Unemployment Risk, Portfolio Choice, and the Racial Wealth Gap," Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute Working Papers 086, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    3. Yonatan Berman & Branko Milanovic, 2020. "Homoploutia: Top Labor and Capital Incomes in the United States, 1950-2020," LIS Working papers 806, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Ellora Derenoncourt & Chi Hyun Kim & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick, 2023. "Unemployment Risk, Portfolio Choice, and the Racial Wealth Gap," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 265, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    5. Ellora Derenoncourt & Chi Hyun Kim & Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick, 2023. "Unemployment Risk, Portfolio Choice, and the Racial Wealth Gap," Working Papers 332, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    6. Moritz Kuhn & Moritz Schularick & Ulrike I. Steins, 2020. "Income and Wealth Inequality in America, 1949–2016," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3469-3519.
    7. Wojciech Kopczuk & Eric Zwick, 2020. "Business Incomes at the Top," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 27-51, Fall.
    8. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2020. "The Rise of Income and Wealth Inequality in America: Evidence from Distributional Macroeconomic Accounts," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 3-26, Fall.
    9. Matthew Fisher-Post, 2020. "Examining the Great Leveling: New Evidence on Midcentury American Inequality," PSE Working Papers hal-02876981, HAL.
    10. Job Boerma & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2023. "Reparations and Persistent Racial Wealth Gaps," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 171-221.
    11. Garbinti, Bertrand & Goupille-Lebret, Jonathan & Piketty, Thomas, 2018. "Income inequality in France, 1900–2014: Evidence from Distributional National Accounts (DINA)," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 63-77.
    12. Arun Advani & George Bangham & Jack Leslie, 2021. "The UK's wealth distribution and characteristics of high‐wealth households," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3-4), pages 397-430, September.
    13. Thomas Blanchet & Bertrand Garbinti & Jonathan Goupille-Lebret & Clara Martínez-Toledano, 2018. "Applying Generalized Pareto Curves to Inequality Analysis," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 114-118, May.
    14. Bukowski, Pawel & Novokmet, Filip, 2019. "Between communism and capitalism: long-term inequality in Poland, 1892-2015," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102834, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Duquette, Nicolas J., 2018. "Inequality and philanthropy: High-income giving in the United States 1917–2012," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 25-41.
    16. Pawel Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2019. "Between Communism and Capitalism: Long-Term Inequality in Poland, 1892- 2015," World Inequality Lab Working Papers hal-02876995, HAL.
    17. Marina Gindelsky, 2022. "Do transfers lower inequality between households? Demographic evidence from Distributional National Accounts," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1233-1257, July.
    18. Matthew Fisher-Post, 2020. "Examining the Great Leveling: New Evidence on Midcentury American Inequality," World Inequality Lab Working Papers hal-02876981, HAL.
    19. Matthew Fisher-Post, 2020. "Examining the Great Leveling: New Evidence on Midcentury American Inequality," Working Papers hal-02876981, HAL.
    20. Pawel Bukowski & Filip Novokmet, 2019. "Between Communism and Capitalism: Long-Term Inequality in Poland, 1892- 2015," Working Papers hal-02876995, HAL.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30229. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.