Creating an Integrated System of Data and Statistics on Household Income, Consumption, and Wealth: Time to Build

Abstract

The study of inequality among U.S. households and socioeconomic groups has become a mainstay of academic research, policy debates, and discourse among the public in recent decades. The basis for these discussions, in research and common kitchen table-talk, often relies on information produced by federal statistical agencies. However, reports from these agencies are grounded in a variety of different concepts, underlying data, and methods. The result is that federal data do not always tell a consistent or easily interpretable story about the characteristics of household income, consumption, wealth, and about trends in the nation’s poverty and inequality measures. For example, since 1979, the measure of per-capita personal income produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has increased by almost twice as much as a measure of mean household income from the Census Bureau. To review the major income, consumption, and wealth (ICW) statistics currently produced by the United States—and to provide guidance for their modernization to better inform policy and research—the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Committee on National Statistics convened an expert committee to author a consensus study report. In addition to reviewing the current system, the panel was tasked with providing guidance for producing consistent micro- and macro-level statistics on ICW and assessing the available data sources for creating a new integrated system that would be both timely and transparent.