In economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

, income distribution is how a nation’s total economy is distributed amongst its population.

Income distribution has always been a central concern of economic theory and economic policy. Classical economists such as Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

, Thomas Malthus

Thomas Malthus

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent....

 and David Ricardo

David Ricardo

David Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...

 were mainly concerned with factor income distribution, that is, the distribution

Distribution (economics)

Distribution in economics refers to the way total output, income, or wealth is distributed among individuals or among the factors of production .. In general theory and the national income and product accounts, each unit of output corresponds to a unit of income...

 of income

Income

Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...

 between the main factors of production

Factors of production

In economics, factors of production means inputs and finished goods means output. Input determines the quantity of output i.e. output depends upon input. Input is the starting point and output is the end point of production process and such input-output relationship is called a production function...

, land, labour and capital.

Modern economists have also addressed this issue, but have been more concerned with the distribution of income across individuals and households. Important theoretical and policy concerns include the relationship between income inequality and economic growth.

The distribution of income within a community may be represented by the Lorenz curve

Lorenz curve

In economics, the Lorenz curve is a graphical representation of the cumulative distribution function of the empirical probability distribution of wealth; it is a graph showing the proportion of the distribution assumed by the bottom y% of the values...

. The Lorenz curve is closely associated with measures of income inequality, such as the Gini coefficient

Gini coefficient

The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion developed by the Italian statistician and sociologist Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper "Variability and Mutability" ....

.

Income distribution in the United States

In the United States, income is distributed somewhat unequally, with those in the top two quintiles earning more than the bottom 60% combined. Yet, the distribution of income is not nearly as polarized as in many developing countries with most of the USA's earned income resting in the hands of the middle class

Middle class

The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

.

See also

• Affluence in the United States
  Affluence in the United States
  Affluence in the United States refers to an individual's or household's state of being in an economically favorable position in contrast to a given reference group...
  
  
• Income inequality metrics
  Income inequality metrics
  The concept of inequality is distinct from that of poverty and fairness. Income inequality metrics or income distribution metrics are used by social scientists to measure the distribution of income, and economic inequality among the participants in a particular economy, such as that of a specific...
  
  
• Kinetic exchange models of markets
  Kinetic exchange models of markets
  Kinetic exchange models are multi-agent dynamic models inspired by the statistical physics of energy distribution, which try to explain the robust and universal features of income/wealth distributions....
  
  
• Median household income
  Median household income
  The median household income is commonly used to generate data about geographic areas and divides households into two equal segments with the first half of households earning less than the median household income and the other half earning more...
  
  
• Personal income in the United States
  Personal income in the United States
  Personal income is an individual’s total earnings from wages, investment interest, and other sources. In the United States the most widely cited personal income statistics are the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s personal income and the Census Bureau’s per capita money income...
  
  
• Poverty in the United States
  Poverty in the United States
  Poverty is defined as the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday September 13th, 2011, the nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010, up from 14.3% in 2009 and to its highest level...
  
  
• Redistribution of wealth

External links

• The Polarization of the U.S. Labor Market, economics.harvard.edu
• U.S. Census Bureau ([1999] 2004). "Income Inequality (1947-1998)." (dead link)