income distribution
How earnings spread
Income distribution describes how a society's total earnings are spread among its population.
Economists measure it to understand inequality—whether wealth concentrates among a few or spreads broadly.
A skewed income distribution means the richest hold disproportionate shares: The country's income distribution has grown more unequal since the 1980s.
Policy debates about taxation and wages often center on income distribution.
- wagesPayment for work
- taxationCompulsory government revenue collection
- fair shareEquitable part owed
- trickle downSpread gradually to lower levels
- social mobilityMovement between societal strata
economic growth · living wage · poverty line · economic disparity · supply and demand · quintiles · collective bargaining · deciles · labor rights · wealth gap · top earners · middle class · stratification · poverty · tax bracket · minimum wage · pay equity · public sector
- social classupper class, middle class, lower class, working class, social class
- human geographycultural landscape, demographics, migration, demography, urbanization
- Economic Fairnessequal pay, fair wages, fair pay, pay equity, wage gap
- national statisticspopulation, demographics, population data, demographic data, birth rates
- Trust TaxationDNI, tax returns, trust corpus, tax compliance, federal taxes
- demographicspopulation density, population growth, population, gender ratio, ethnic groups
income distributionincome equality
Even wealth distribution
wealth concentration · income inequality · economic inequality · economic equality · plutocracy
income distributionwealth distribution
How prosperity is shared
income distributionindividual income
Single person's earnings