Ever since Gordon Gekko uttered his now infamous credo, “greed is good,” many economists have been concerned with the long-term effects of the growing income inequality in the U.S. While free-market enthusiasts see things differently, inequality has become a recurring topic within our news cycle, as it reflects anxieties about the disproportionate influence of the so-called 1%, the plight of blue-collar workers and the dwindling middle-class.
As American society grows increasingly unequal, there have been several attempts to gauge the scale of current disparities and to forecast future developments. Using the latest available data from the annual Occupational Employment Statistics, we’ve looked at the gap between the highest and lowest-earning professions across U.S. metros and in each of the 50 states, starting May 2013, up until May 2017. While recent studies have considered income per household as their unit of measurement, we propose an assessment of wage disparities between different occupational groups at metro and state-level.
For the full report, please click here
