(DUB) Guidance on Income Inequality

To: CICs and the SDC Leads and their networks
With the President's annual State-of-the-Union address tomorrow night expected to focus on income inequality, you or your networks may receive questions from the media on this topic. In the event you receive such an inquery, the Census Bureau has some statistics on income inequality to which you can guide reporters.
 
2012 ACS (for local data):
 
-- Table B19080: Household income quintile upper limits
-- Table B19083: Gini index of income inequality (The Gini Index is a summary measure of income inequality. The Gini index varies between zero and one. A value of one indicates total inequality where only one household has any income. A value of zero indicates total equality, where all households have equal income.)
 
The table numbers will remain consistent through the years, so, for instance, if you wanted to see how the numbers have changed since the '07 ACS, you can access this information using these table numbers 
 
CPS (national-level data pertaining to 2012, and annual historical data):
 
 
-- Table H-1: Income limits for each fifth of households, and top 5 percent
-- Table H-2: Share of aggregate income received by each fifth and top 5 percent of households
-- Table H-3: Mean household income received by each fifth and top 5 percent
-- Table H-4: Gini ratios for households, by race and Hispanic origin of householder
 
 
Note: The changes in income inequality between 2011 and 2012 were not statistically significant as measured by the shares of aggregate household income by quintiles or the Gini index, the two primary measures. Since 1993, the earliest year available for comparable measures of income inequality, the Gini index was up 5.2 percent, signaling more income inequality.