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Economic Research: How Increasing Income Inequality Is Dampening U.S. Economic Growth, And Possible Ways To Change The Tide

Overview

∞ At extreme levels, income inequality can harm sustained economic growth over long periods. The U.S. is approaching that threshold.
∞ Standard & Poor's sees extreme income inequality as a drag on long-run economic growth. We've reduced our 10-year U.S. growth forecast to a 2.5% rate. We expected 2.8% five years ago.
∞ With wages of a college graduate double that of a high school graduate, increasing educational attainment is an effective way to bring income inequality back to healthy levels.
∞ It also helps the U.S economy. Over the next five years, if the American workforce completed just one more year of school, the resulting productivity gains could add about $525 billion, or 2.4%, to the level of GDP, relative to the baseline.
∞ A cautious approach to reducing inequality would benefit the economy, but extreme policy measures could backfire.

We see a narrowing of the current income gap as beneficial to the economy. In addition to strengthening the quality of economic expansions, bringing levels of income inequality under control would improve U.S. economic resilience in the face of potential risks to growth. From a consumer perspective, benefits would extend across income levels, boosting purchasing power among those in the middle and lower levels of the pay scale--while the richest Americans would enjoy increased spending power in a sustained economic expansion. Policymakers should take care, however, to avoid policies and practices that are either too heavy handed or foster an unchecked widening of the wealth gap. Extreme approaches on either side would stunt GDP growth and lead to shorter, more fragile expansionary periods.

Is Income Inequality Increasing?

Several institutions, including the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have published studies showing that income inequality has been increasing for the past several decades (3). According to a 2011 review by the OECD, the average income of the richest 10% of the population is nine times that of the poorest 10%--in other words, a ratio of 9-to-1. The U.S. ratio is much higher, at 14-to-1 (4). The U.S. Gini coefficient, after taxes, has increased by more than 20% from 1979--to 0.434 in 2010 (see chart 1).

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