1/20/11

Personal income inequality: age factor

Another traditional inequality topic is associated with age. We again use personal income measurements published by the U.S. Census Bureau (CB). These data come from the CPS Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Surveys (http://www.census.gov/cps/). Figure 1 shows the age-dependent mean income since 1967. As mentioned in the previous post, mean income (as expressed in 2009 US$) in the age group between 15 and 24 years has been growing since 1974. The largest growth is observed in the elder age groups between 45 and 54 (marked 50) and between 55 and 64 (marked 60).
Figure 1. Age dependent mean income since 1967.

Figure 2 displays the same curves as in Figure 1 but normalized to the peak (among all age groups) mean income for each year. The overall picture is clear: peak mean income drift in the direction of larger ages. Extrapolating the curve “60” one can estimate that the peak mean income will be measured in this group in approximately 5 to 7 years. All these effects were well described by our model of personal income distribution.

Figure 2. Same as in Figure 1 normalized to the peak mean income for each year.

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