Indicator: Income Distribution
Data and Data Discussion provided by Communities Count
Sustainability Snapshot:
The widening gap between rich and poor is a root cause of social unsustainability – the loss of connectedness in our communities and trust in our social institutions. Income gained from employment is as unequally distributed today as it was during the 1920’s, the Gilded Age. (1) And like the 1920’s, growing income inequality may presage an economic collapse. In addition to the social consequences of economic inequality, such as discrimination, food insecurity, homelessness, and despair, the gap between rich and poor also has a detrimental effect on equal opportunity in education and health care. As Paul Krugman, eminent Princeton economist and New York Times columnist reports, “A society with highly unequal results is, more or less inevitably, a society with highly unequal opportunity, too.”
Sustainability Trend:
In the two decades between 1979 and 2007, income has shifted from the four lower income groups to the highest income group.
Data Discussion
- collapse all
Additional Resources
- State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Depression
In this report by United for a Fair Economy, it is shown that people of color are experiencing a silent economic depression. Racial barriers continue to impede many people of color from achieving the same economic success as their white counterparts
- Washington Median Income and the Dow Jones, from Sightline Institute
Two decades of so-called progress: the Dow soared but Washington's middle-class incomes barely budged. 1990-2005
- Gini Ratios by State, 1969, 1979, 1989, 1999
Table of gini ratios (measure of income inequality) by state over three decades.
- Gini Index by County 2006
This chart shows recently released census income statistics for Washington State counties. Ratio column shows how many times greater the average income of the top 20 percent is compared to the bottom 20 percent, a measure of the equality of income distribution. GINI is also a measure of distribution, with 0 indicating that everyone shares equally in the income of a region, and 1 indicating all the income is made by a single person. The places with the highest level of inequality tend to be poor places in the South, and those with the lowest tend to be middle class suburbs in the Midwest. The highest county in the United States is New York County at 0.599 while the lowest is Kendall County, Ill., a Chicago suburb, at 0.317. This table was published by the New York Times from US Census data.
- Gini Ratios by City and Town in Washington State
Published by the New York Times
- (1) Paul Krugman. 2002. For Richer. New York Times Magazine
This essay published in the New York Times Magazine by Princeton economist Paul Krugman explores the history and politics of income inequality in the United States.




