This paper analyzes distributional changes over the last quarter of the twentieth century. We focus on four distinct distributions: the distribution of hourly wage rates, the distribution of annual earnings of individuals, the distribution of annual earnings of families, and the distribution of...

The authors use 1990 U.S. Census of Population data to calculate what poverty rates would have been if cohabitors were treated in the same manner as married couples. They find that the official treatment of cohabiting partners as separate family units overstated the extent of poverty in 1989...