U.S. Income Mobility in the Seventies and Eighties.

This paper focuses on three questions: (1) Was mobility within the income distribution in the 1980s different from the 1970s? (2) Is there as much mobility when some measure of permanent income is used? and (3) Does movement within the income distribution imply real income changes? Income mobility between 1969 and 1976, and between 1979 and 1986 is examined using real family income from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results show that there is considerable movement within the income distribution when both annual and permanent income are used. This movement, however, is generally not very great in either direction. Copyright 1993 by The International Association for Research in Income and Wealth.