American Exceptionalism in Market Income Inequality: An Analysis Based on Microdata from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) Database

The US has exceptionally high inequality of disposable household income (i.e., income after accounting for taxes and transfers). Among working-age households (those with no persons over age 60), that high level of inequality is caused by a high level of market income inequality (i.e., income before taxes and transfers), paired with a moderate level of redistribution. In this paper, we look more deeply at market income inequality, focusing on its main component - labor income - across a group of 24 OECD countries. We disaggregate the working-age population into household types, defined by the n... Mehr ...