Brookings: City and metro income inequality data reveal ups and downs through 2016

Alan Berube, Monday, February 5, 2018

Research has historically framed income inequality as a national issue, one best addressed through national monetary and fiscal policies that raise demand for labor and redistribute resources from the rich to the poor. Yet widening disparities across and within places in the United States, revealed in debates around wages, housing affordability, and public safety, have motivated policymakers and researchers to pay increased attention to inequality's local dimensions.

Now, many cities' aggressive bids for Amazon's second headquarters are heightening anxieties that the company's expansion could further accelerate inequality wherever it eventually lands (as many say it has in Seattle). The debate about Amazon fits into a wider set of concerns about the tech sector's role in contributing to income inequality, via the winner-take-all dynamics of the digital economy.

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Courtesy of Brookings