Trends in Inequality Using Consumption-Expenditures: The U.S. from 1960 to 1993.

While much of the evidence suggests that there was an increase in inequality in the United States during the 1980s, the reasons are less evident. Using the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey data, the authors find that the inequality of consumption-expenditures, as well as the inequality of other measures of resources, widened considerably during the 1980s. While previous studies suggest that increasing inequality is mainly due to increases in within group inequality, they show that by decomposing inequality by the interaction of family type and education almost three-fourths of the increase in inequality is accounted for by changes in inequality between groups and by shifts in the population. Copyright 1997 by The International Association for Research in Income and Wealth.