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IMAGINE a society with only three people. Each of them has an annual income of $50,000. At some point, two of them marry. Has the income distribution changed?

The answer, of course, is no. Before and after the marriage, each person has $50,000 in income. The distribution remains exactly the same.

But government statistics would suggest otherwise--that the share of total income has shifted dramatically in favor of upon the side of; favorable to; for the advantage of.

See also: favor  the rich. That's because most government surveys track data for "family units," not individuals. And the number of individuals per family unit can vary greatly, depending on marital status marital status,
n the legal standing of a person in regard to his or her marriage state. , children, and other factors.

My colleague Aparna Mathur and I have presented evidence in these pages that many of the statistics commonly used to paint a picture of middle-class middle class
n.
The socioeconomic class between the working class and the upper class.

---

middle-class  misery are misleading. The best measure of how the middle class is doing, we argued, is consumption, and consumption has been doing just fine.

Our earlier work accepted the standard assumption that the family unit is the correct level of analysis. In a new paper we have just completed, however, we find that this assumption is highly misleading.

The problem is that, much to our surprise, there is enormous variation in family size across income distribution. Family units with higher incomes are more likely to contain a married couple, and more likely to include children. In 2005, for example, the average family unit in the lowest quintile quin·tile  
n.
1. The astrological aspect of planets distant from each other by 72° or one fifth of the zodiac.

2. Statistics The portion of a frequency distribution containing one fifth of the total sample.  had 1.8 individuals. The average family unit in the top quintile had 3.1 individuals. So while those at the top have more resources, those resources come from more earners and are used to feed more people.

In the nearby chart, drawn from our paper, we estimate the growth in consumption since 2000 for individuals in each quintile, adjusting the data to account for the fact that family units have different sizes. The data now tell an even more striking story than our original work, which did not adjust for family size. It is not those at the top who have seen their economic well-being increase fastest since 2000, but rather those at the bottom. Those in the middle have seen their incomes grow faster as well.

As we show in our paper, failing to adjust for family size makes the consumption growth rate of the rich appear slightly higher than that of everyone else. But the growth rate for all income quintiles Quintiles Transnational Corp. is a contract research organization which serves the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and healthcare industries. History
Quintiles was founded in 1982 by Dennis Gillings and as of 2007 it has 18,000 employees.  is quite healthy. Thus, the notion that all the benefits of our economic growth are going to the rich is incorrect Incorrect means to not be correct and may also refer to:

• Politically incorrect
• Incorrectly formatted data, a computer error

See also

• Correctness
• Anomalously numbered roads in Great Britain
• Disputes in English grammar (Incorrect English)

. It is true, as the New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of  Times recently wrote, that consumption growth is "unbalanced," but it is not clear in which direction. The answer depends on whether you adjust for family size.

The day may come when the fruits of our economy are spread so thin that additional government redistribution re·dis·tri·bu·tion  
n.
1. The act or process of redistributing.

2. An economic theory or policy that advocates reducing inequalities in the distribution of wealth.  is demanded by all men of good conscience conscience, sense of moral awareness or of right and wrong. The concept has been variously explained by moralists and philosophers. In the history of ethics, the conscience has been looked upon as the will of a divine power expressing itself in man's judgments, an . But today is not that day.

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IMAGINE a society with only three people. Each of them has an annual income of $50,000. At some point, two of them marry. Has the income distribution changed?

The answer, of course, is no. Before and after the marriage, each person has $50,000 in income. The distribution remains exactly the same.

But government statistics would suggest otherwise--that the share of total income has shifted dramatically in favor of upon the side of; favorable to; for the advantage of.

See also: favor  the rich. That's because most government surveys track data for "family units," not individuals. And the number of individuals per family unit can vary greatly, depending on marital status marital status,
n the legal standing of a person in regard to his or her marriage state. , children, and other factors.

My colleague Aparna Mathur and I have presented evidence in these pages that many of the statistics commonly used to paint a picture of middle-class middle class
n.
The socioeconomic class between the working class and the upper class.

---

middle-class  misery are misleading. The best measure of how the middle class is doing, we argued, is consumption, and consumption has been doing just fine.

Our earlier work accepted the standard assumption that the family unit is the correct level of analysis. In a new paper we have just completed, however, we find that this assumption is highly misleading.

The problem is that, much to our surprise, there is enormous variation in family size across income distribution. Family units with higher incomes are more likely to contain a married couple, and more likely to include children. In 2005, for example, the average family unit in the lowest quintile quin·tile  
n.
1. The astrological aspect of planets distant from each other by 72° or one fifth of the zodiac.

2. Statistics The portion of a frequency distribution containing one fifth of the total sample.  had 1.8 individuals. The average family unit in the top quintile had 3.1 individuals. So while those at the top have more resources, those resources come from more earners and are used to feed more people.

In the nearby chart, drawn from our paper, we estimate the growth in consumption since 2000 for individuals in each quintile, adjusting the data to account for the fact that family units have different sizes. The data now tell an even more striking story than our original work, which did not adjust for family size. It is not those at the top who have seen their economic well-being increase fastest since 2000, but rather those at the bottom. Those in the middle have seen their incomes grow faster as well.

As we show in our paper, failing to adjust for family size makes the consumption growth rate of the rich appear slightly higher than that of everyone else. But the growth rate for all income quintiles Quintiles Transnational Corp. is a contract research organization which serves the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and healthcare industries. History
Quintiles was founded in 1982 by Dennis Gillings and as of 2007 it has 18,000 employees.  is quite healthy. Thus, the notion that all the benefits of our economic growth are going to the rich is incorrect Incorrect means to not be correct and may also refer to:

• Politically incorrect
• Incorrectly formatted data, a computer error

See also

• Correctness
• Anomalously numbered roads in Great Britain
• Disputes in English grammar (Incorrect English)

. It is true, as the New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of  Times recently wrote, that consumption growth is "unbalanced," but it is not clear in which direction. The answer depends on whether you adjust for family size.

The day may come when the fruits of our economy are spread so thin that additional government redistribution re·dis·tri·bu·tion  
n.
1. The act or process of redistributing.

2. An economic theory or policy that advocates reducing inequalities in the distribution of wealth.  is demanded by all men of good conscience conscience, sense of moral awareness or of right and wrong. The concept has been variously explained by moralists and philosophers. In the history of ethics, the conscience has been looked upon as the will of a divine power expressing itself in man's judgments, an . But today is not that day.

[GRAPHIC OMITTED]