Stephen J. Rose - Social Stratification in the United States: The American Profile Poster of Who Owns What, Who Makes How Much, and Who Works Where

STEPHEN J. ROSE is a nationally recognized labor economist. Currently, he is a research professor at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy and a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute. He previously held senior positions at Educational Testing Service, the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the National Commission for Employment Policy, and the Washington State senate. His commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other print and broadcast media. The author of Rebound: Why America Will Emerge Stronger from the Financial Crisis and Social Stratification in the United States: The American Profile Poster (The New Press), he lives in Washington, DC.

ALSO BY STEPHEN J. ROSE

Rebound:Why America Will Emerge Stronger from the Financial Crisis

MANY TEACHERS AND COMMENTATORS have used visual images to portray disparities in the distribution of income in the United States. The purpose of this poster and booklet is to show, in an easily accessible way, how various groups in the American population are faring in terms of several social indicators. Much of this information is discussed in the media and in classrooms, but the numbers, percentages, and median figures can be confusing and hard to relate to one another.

The poster is an attempt to overcome this problem by presenting the data in a single visual picture. In this form, the relationship of income, wealth, and education to such variables as race, gender, and household type are visible at a glance.

One of the original purposes of the poster was to show the vast differences in incomes across the American population in 1979. Compared with earlier editions, especially with that first poster, many things have changed. This is the eighth edition, which presents data that reflect 2019 incomes (2020 data were also available but not used because of the economic disruption of the COVID pandemic). Inequality in 2019 is substantially greater than it was forty years ago, making the 1979 distribution look much fairer.

The eighth edition is based on the same categories with the one exception of the 2014 poster, which used educational attainment in place of occupation. Given that all the data come from various years of the Annual Socioeconomic Supplement of the March Current Population Surveys (CPS), it is easy to show how family types, races, educational attainment, occupations, and incomes have changed over time because the Census Bureau has contracted the Minnesota Population Center to harmonize the answers of different census surveys and for different years of each survey. The data for this poster come from the March 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS); the demographics come from March 2020, but the income and earnings are based on 2019 levels.

In addition, other changes include the rising shares of Hispanics and Asians, a huge increase in the share of workers with a four-year degree (see ), and an economy in which manufacturing has a much smaller influence. All these changes are documented, and the poster shows how they affect rising inequality. Furthermore, data from 1999 will show whether these changes were occurring in the twenty years since the first edition of this poster/ book in 1979 or in the next twenty years from 1999 to 2019.

The icons are distributed along two separate income lines. The graph with larger icons, on the left side of the poster, shows the 91 percent of the population with combined gross household income (before taxes are deducted) up to $280,000. The graph on the right side of the poster depicts the population with incomes of up to the four icons that have incomes over $800,000. Also included with this graph are rows of green dollars to show the average level of wealth of households at different levels of income. Wealth consists of assets held rather than wages and salaries. Most peoples wealth consists of tangible thingshouses, cars, consumer durables, and so onwhile the bulk of the richest peoples wealth is composed of financial assets, such as stocks, bonds, insurance policies, and the businesses they own.

Table 1

Number of icons on the poster broken out by family type

THE TABLES AND FIGURES in this booklet complement the poster by presenting a complete mathematical breakdown of each of the statistical relationships. These are the building blocks from which the poster has been constructed.

After all the data are represented, attention is paid to the widely used concept of middle class. In the first booklet, I wrote that the term middle class was useless because it was so broad as to have no meaning. This position has been validated in many surveys by the Pew Research Center that show that approximately 90 percent of Americans choose middle class when given the choice of identifying as lower, middle, or upper class. In the second version of the poster, I reported that the middle class had shrunk between 1979 and 1983.

The poster and accompanying data allow the viewer to investigate what various components of the middle class have in common and the ways in which they differ. The purpose is to stimulate discussion about these important questions rather than provide answers. The first chapter discusses statistics, mathematical figures, and government surveys. The next six chapters deal with various relationships: families, education, race, income, and wealth. The following two chapters deal with defining five social groups, with three being lower, middle, and upper middle class. shows the growth of the upper middle class and the growth of the number qualifying as rich. The ninth chapter looks at multiyear experiences of the five income groups. The final chapter explores the causes of income inequality.

At the end of the text are three appendices. The first appendix presents suggestions for classroom use. The second appendix lists references and government data sources. Finally, the third appendix lists cited and uncited papers by this author.