Consumption and Social Welfare : Living Standards and their Distribution in the United States

Family income-based statistics on social welfare suggest that inequality has increased and poverty remained persistently high over the past twenty-five years. Yet consumption-based statistics yield rigorous and quite different estimates. Slesnick's examination reveals that the standard of living has grown significantly while inequality and poverty have decreased.

The most widely cited social welfare statistics in the United States are based on tabulations of family income. The picture that emerges gives cause for concern: median family income has hardly changed over the last twenty-five years while inequality has increased and poverty remains persistently high. Yet consumption-based statistics as employed in this work yield rigorous and quite different estimates of real individual and social welfare. Closely linked to economic theory, Professor Slesnick's examination of standards of living, inequality, and poverty reveal that the standard of US living has grown significantly while inequality and poverty have decreased to relatively low levels. His assessment is drawn from extended period data in order to chart long-run trends. The work will be of interest to economists, sociologists, economic historians, political scientists, and other readers in the social and policy sciences. Designed to be accessible to non-economists, technical details are relegated to appendices.