Talk:Income inequality in the United States

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Income inequality in the United States article.
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Good article Income inequality in the United States has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on June 29, 2007.
July 7, 2007 Good article nominee Listed
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Brendel
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Contents

[edit] Intro

The intro needs to be fixed, it contains many grammatical ambiguities, especially near the end. ☆ CieloEstrellado 06:57, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I'll proof read it. Sometimes, I get too caught up in the outline. Thanks for the heads up and putting some effort into copyediting this article! As I've said, I'll proof read it tomorrow morining once more. Regards, Signaturebrendel 06:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

That was quick! Examples:

  • In addition to expertise, productiveness, work experience, inheritance, gender, race had a strong influence on personal income[20][21] while household income was largely effected by the number of income earners.[12]
    • It is not clear *what* of the many things mentioned "had a strong influence on personal income."
  • While income rose among for all demographics and gender as well as race gaps were closing,[22][1] inequality has increased with those at the very top of the economic strata have been receiving an increasing share.[17]
    • Did you mean "While income rose among all demographic groups, and gender and race gaps were closing, inequality has increased as a result of those at the very top of the economic strata increasing their share."

☆ CieloEstrellado 07:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll fix the first when I get back to editing in a couple of hours. As for the second, yes, that's what I meant! Thanks, Signaturebrendel 23:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

It seems the article mainly focuses on the last couple of decades, but the United States has existed for over two centuries. Is there any plan to extend the focus backwards in time to address this deficiency? Biruitorul 02:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there is - though there is little data. The Census Bureau didn't start keeping data until a couple of decades ago. Before 1900 (1950 actually) - it's total guess work. I'll will try and find some early estimates but most of the article is going to deal with the last couple of decades for which we have a lot of data and on which most economists concentrate. In other words, there just isn't much data -reliable data- before the 1950s- so there isn't much we can say - I'll, however, try and find whatever relaible data I can find. Regards, Signaturebrendel 05:17, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA passed

I have reviewed this article under the GA criteria and I can say it has passed per the "referencing" "accuracy" and text quality. If you feel I have made a mistake in my decisions please contact me. Francisco Tevez 10:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC) Italic text

[edit] article name is biased

i believe the name of the article to be biased because it assumes that income is not distributed evenly. the name of the article should be "Income equlaity" and then it should discuss whether or not it is equal. i believe that everyone gets as much money as they deserve, so in my mind it is equal. those who believe that it's not equal use the argument that not all people make the same amount of money. i believe this argument is rediclious because in no society is there total equality on that basis. Please consider and discuss, thank you: (209.7.171.66 22:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC))

Income inequality is, however, the term used by economists. If you beleive that the term shouldn't be used, you will need to convince this nation's economists of that first. Once you convince the social scientific community that they should no longer use the term "Income Inequality" I will gladly change the title. BTW: Most economists would agree that people deserve differing amounnts of money, but almost none would agree that "everyone gets as much money as they deserve" in the current market. But that is irrelevant here, the term used by economists is inequality, so that will be the term used on Wikipedia as well. Regards, Signaturebrendel 04:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Brendel. When economists use the term "income inequality", they are not making a prescriptive moral or ethical judgment that some members of society receive too little while others receive too much. "Income inequality" is a descriptive term that encapsulates the idea that everyone does not earn the same income. Morals and ethics follow. -FrankTobia (talk) 15:13, 12 May 2008 (UTC)