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Joint Economic Committee Democrats
Income Charts
Chart 1.4
Last updated 1/11/07
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The distribution of after-tax income has become more unequal since 1979, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office.
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The average real after-tax income of the bottom 20 percent of households was 6 percent higher in 2004 than it was in 1979, after adjusting for inflation. The real after-tax income of the middle 20 percent of households was 21 percent higher.
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The real after-tax income of the richest 20 percent of households grew even faster over this period, with by far the largest gains at the very top of the distribution.
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The real after-tax income of the richest 1 percent of households was almost 180 percent higher in 2004 than it was in 1979. The real after-tax income of the next-richest 19 percent of households increased by 46 percent over the same period, but that is less than a third of the increase for the top 1 percent.
Source: Joint Economic Committee Democrats, based on Congressional Budget Office, “Historical Effective Tax Rates: 1979 to 2004,” December 2006, Table 1C. Click here for more information about the sources of income data.
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