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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: Lane3 who wrote (22594)6/30/2006 10:03:24 AM
From: Lane3  Read Replies (3) of 543690
 
A couple of snippets on equality

Wages and Work Hours

Here is an intriguing fact from a new NBER study:

In 1983, the most poorly paid 20 percent of workers were more likely to put in long work hours than the top paid 20 percent. By 2002, the best-paid 20 percent were twice as likely to work long hours as the bottom 20 percent.

That is, wages and hours worked went from being negatively correlated to being positively correlated. This may be an important piece of the puzzle of rising income inequality.

Define "Rich"
From Hal Varian's column in yesterday's NY Times:

After a detailed examination of the financial circumstances of people close to retirement, two economists, Stephen F. Venti of Dartmouth and David A. Wise of Harvard, concluded that the primary reason for differences in retirement assets was differences in propensities to save. It is not unusual to see low-income households with high savings rates holding more financial assets at retirement than high-income households who saved a smaller fraction of their income.

People often use the term "rich" as if the word had an unambiguous meaning. Venti and Wise show that high-income people and wealthy people are frequently different people.

gregmankiw.blogspot.com
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