issue Inequality & Mobility

Equitable Growth supports research and policy analysis on how trends in economic inequality and mobility and changes in the economy have affected the concentration of wealth, income, and earnings, and how these distributional shifts have affected the promise of economic security and opportunity.

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During the mid-20th century, strong economic growth was broadly shared, as incomes increased and children could expect a better quality of life than their parents, though significant disparities across demographic groups remained. In recent decades, wealth, income, and earnings inequality have been rising and mobility declining, and demographic disparities persist. Better understanding these trends and their implications for economic growth will inform evidence-backed policies that improve growth and mobility for people across incomes, regions, and demographic groups.

Featured Research

In Conversation

In Conversation with Miles Corak

Inequality & Mobility
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U.S. economic mobility trends and outcomes

Inequality & Mobility
In Conversation

In conversation with Sasha Killewald

Inequality & Mobility
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GDP 2.0: Measuring who prospers when the U.S. economy grows

Inequality & Mobility
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Stratification economics: What it is and how it advances our understanding of inequality

Inequality & Mobility
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Six charts that explain how inequality in the United States changed over the past 20 years

Inequality & Mobility
TOPICS: 1
TOPICS: GDP 2.0

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Coronavirus Recession

Scholars and advocates say racial disparities and worker power are key to the coronavirus recession and to long-term U.S. economic recovery

Inequality & MobilityFamiliesLabor
Coronavirus Recession

Why minimum wages are a critical tool for achieving racial justice in the U.S. labor market

Inequality & MobilityLabor
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Lisa Cook, Hilary Hoynes, and Atif Mian join Equitable Growth Steering Committee

Inequality & Mobility
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Equitable Growth’s labor market experts deliver comment letter to U.S. Department of Labor on status of independent contractors

CompetitionLaborInequality & Mobility
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Equitable Growth’s Amanda Fischer joins others in comment letter to antitrust regulator on harmful U.S. banking consolidation

CompetitionInequality & Mobility
report

Public investments in education can spur equitable growth, pay for themselves, and create jobs for a stronger economic recovery

FamiliesInequality & MobilityTax & Macroeconomics
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Equitable Growth’s Household Pulse graphs: September 30–October 12

Inequality & Mobility
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The rising number of U.S. households with burdensome student debt calls for a federal response

Inequality & MobilityFamilies
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Voting rights equal economic progress: The Voting Rights Act and U.S. economic inequality

Inequality & MobilityLabor
working paper

The Effect of Political Power on Labor Market Inequality: Evidence from the 1965 Voting Rights Act

Inequality & MobilityLabor
Expert Focus

Expert Focus: The consequences of economic inequality among Latinx groups in the United States

Tax & MacroeconomicsInequality & MobilityLabor
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Can policymakers reverse the unequal decline in middle-age U.S. homeownership rates?

Tax & MacroeconomicsInequality & MobilityFamilies

Experts on the issue

Grantee

Morris Kleiner

University of Minnesota

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Grantee

Heather Sarsons

University of Chicago

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Grantee

Leah Stokes

University of California, Santa Barbara

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Grantee

Joan Williams

University of California, Hastings College of Law

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Grantee

Martina Jasova

Barnard College

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