Seminar Series: Comparing & Contrasting U.S. National, Regional & State-Level Income Inequality, 2000-2006

About the Talk

Not all households prospered in the new knowledge economy.  Following the economic growth of the 1990’s many faced structural labor-market changes, such as layoffs, restructuring, and wage and benefit cuts. When looking at aggregate measures of household well being, such as mean income, as well as standard inequality indices such as the gini index, it is not possible to fully comprehend the impact of these structural changes at the household level. Important aspects of the development process associated with the distribution of income, however, are more readily apparent at smaller levels of geography, such as at the regional and state level. As was pointed out by Metwally and Jensen (1973), the measure of regional income inequality based upon the mean value relative to the national mean fails to explain either the dispersion of individual incomes nationally, but more importantly the dispersion of incomes within regions. It is quite possible that such a measure could decrease (or converge) over time, while the dispersion across regions, and within states, could show an opposite trend.

About the Speaker

John Hisnanick has a Ph.D. in economics from West Virginia University. He is chief of the Program Participation and Income Transfer branch (since 2000), which is housed in the Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, U.S. Census Bureau. His current research interests focus on income inequality, as well as the economic well-being of veterans, which stems from his prior positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs. In addition, he is adjunct faculty at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he teaches a research seminar senior economics major in the spring semester.

Link to Paper: http://www.popcenter.umd.edu/resources/public-documents/Hisnanick-20008-paper-3.pdf/view