Carrol C., citing me, writes:
> The once-standard source for income inequality was the CPS (created by the
> WPA).
What do CPS and WPA stand for?
The WPA (the good ole' Works Project Administration of the New Deal) first
created the CPS (Consumer Population Survey) as a flagship for gathering
key economic statistical information from households. Today it is housed
in the Census Bureau which, as you know, comes under the Commerce Department.
They publish a series called 'Consumer Population Reports'. The flagship
annual report and most relevant for this discussion is "Income, Poverty and
Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2004"
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf
As their lineage might suggest, the CPS people focus on issues like income
distribution, poverty, health insurance availability and issue special
reports that break these issues down by racial and gender groups. None of
this has made them a favorite for Congressional funding and so they have
had real problems keeping their statistics and coverage
relevant. Ironically, only the Federal Reserve Bank and the IRS seem to be
able to publish data on income distribution that partly includes the large
chunk of income from property wealth and so gives a fairer picture of how
things have changed (but both sources don't focus on this issue so their
data has big limitations and limited access).
Paul
