FROM ISSUE NUMBER 38 - WINTER 1975 GO TO TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Demography and Income Distribution

 

In the Fall 1974 issue (No. 37) of The Public Interest, Irving Kristol pointed out how the traditional division of our population into income classes—“the highest fifth,” “the lowest fifth,” etc.—can exaggerate the unequal distribution of income, because it takes no account of the age composition of these various fifths. A married graduate student with an income of $5,000 annually (supplemented, perhaps, by parental generosity) or a 75-year-old couple who own their house, are covered by medicare, and have an annual income of $5,000 a year, are not in the same position as a working adult male who heads a family and makes something like that same income. 

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