Tag: income inequality

The Racial Wealth Gap

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://observablehq.com/@asg017/the-racial-wealth-gap

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Excerpt:

This is the racial wealth gap: the stark wealth difference between white and Black families in the United States. There are several ways to measure this gap, but in 2016 the median wealth for white households was $149,903, while Black households had $13,024.

There’s a myth in the United States that the racial wealth gap has somehow improved over time. This study shows that: many Americans falsely believe that the gap has improved linearly over time, when in reality, it has barely changed and has even gotten worse in some places in the United States.

Granted, other forms of racial injustive have improved since the 60’s. Black representation in politics, media, and academics have improved. Discrimination based on race in the workplace, schools, and in social life have improved. But the racial wealth gap has not improved.

Author(s): Alex Garcia

Publication Date: 20 February 2021

Publication Site: Observable

ILLINOIS’ POOREST HIT HARDEST BY COVID-19 JOB LOSS, MANY STILL UNEMPLOYED

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-poorest-hit-hardest-by-covid-19-job-loss-many-still-unemployed/

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Excerpt:

Illinois households earning less than $40,000 were four-times as likely to lose their jobs from February-April 2020 and nearly 11 times as likely to still be out of work compared to those earning $75,000 or more.

As Illinois tries to rebuild after the worst year for jobs in state history, low-income Illinoisans find themselves even farther behind than others. Job losses suffered during COVID-19 and state-mandated mitigation protocols disproportionately fell on these families.

Author(s): Vincent Caruso

Publication Date: 19 February 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute

Assessing mortality inequality in the US: What can be said about the future?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://robjhyndman.com/publications/us-longevity/

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Abstract:

This paper investigates mortality inequality across U.S. states by modelling and forecasting mortality rates via a forecast reconciliation approach. Understanding the heterogeneity in state-level mortality experience is of fundamental importance, as it can assist decision-making for policy makers, health authorities, as well as local communities who are seeking to reduce inequalities and disparities in life expectancy. A key challenge of multi-population mortality modeling is high dimensionality, and the resulting complex dependence structures across sub-populations. Moreover, when projecting future mortality rates, it is important to ensure that the state-level forecasts are coherent with the national-level forecasts. We address these issues by first obtaining independent state-level forecasts based on classical stochastic mortality models, and then incorporating the dependence structure in the forecast reconciliation process. Both traditional bottom-up reconciliation and the cutting-edge trace minimization reconciliation methods are considered. Based on the U.S. total mortality data for the period 1969–2017, we project the 10-year-ahead mortality rates at both national-level and state-level up to 2027. We find that the geographical inequality in the longevity levels is likely to continue in the future, and the mortality improvement rates will tend to slow down in the coming decades.

Additional link: https://robjhyndman.com/papers/uslongevity.pdf

Author(s): Han Li, Rob J Hyndman

Publication Date: 14 February 2021

Publication Site: Rob J Hyndman’s personal site