4 - The Twentieth-Century Record of Inequality and Poverty in the United States

Summary

INTRODUCTION

When the twentieth century opened, there was an unusually high level of interest in the economic well-being of the working poor. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, D.C., the Statistics Bureau in Massachusetts, and the Heller Commission in San Francisco were doing the first quantitative studies of U.S. workers’ living standards. Robert Hunter, inspired by Europeans such as Booth, Rowntree, and Engel, was soon to give us our first important sociological study of poverty. The upper end of the income distribution was the object of no less scrutiny, as the Progressives fixed their eye on the monopolies and the new class of rich industrialists and professionals, who, they believed, wielded disproportionate political and economic power.

As the century drew to a close, there was renewed attention to these same issues. After two decades without economic progress for the working class, accompanied by highly visible accumulations of financial wealth by the top 1 percent, the routine publication of an income distribution report by the Census Bureau or a Congressional committee has turned into a political event. Article upon article detailing the recent rise in inequality must make it seem unprecedented to all but the most knowledgeable specialists. In fact, with regard to inequality at least, we are probably replaying the statistical record of a century ago.