Number: RL34434
Title: Income Inequality, Income Mobility, and Economic Policy: U.S. Trends in the 1980s and 1990s
Authors: Thomas L. Hungerford, Government and Finance Division 
Abstract: Three broad types of government economic policy affect income growth and mobility, and hence income inequality: (1) regulation, (2) the tax system, and (3) government transfers. Economic policies to reduce the growth of income inequality may work, in part, through their effects on income mobility. Reducing income mobility (that is, stabilizing incomes) may reduce the rising trend in income inequality, but it could also increase inequality of longer-term income.
Pages: 24
Date: April 4, 2008