Occupational and Wage Inequality in the U.S. Labor Market

Abstract

There has been much attention given to income inequality within the U.S. labor market, especially recently. From the huge amount of discussion and debate about wage inequality (from both the political left and the right), two salient points emerge: that the U.S. labor market shows a far more unequal distribution of wages than the labor markets of other developed countries, and that the overall U.S. wage structure has become dramatically more unequal over the past several decades. This study analyzed economic data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey for the period of 1971 through 2010.