This paper studies inequality in America through the lens of distributional macroeconomic accounts—comprehensive distributions of the aggregate amount of income and wealth recorded in the official macroeconomic accounts of the United States. We use these distributional macroeconomic accounts to quantify the rise of income and wealth concentration since the late 1970s, the change in tax progressivity, and the direct redistributive effects of government intervention in the economy. Between 1978 and 2018, the share of pre-tax income earned by the top 1% rose from 10% to about 19%, and the share of wealth owned by the top 0.1% rose from 7% to about 18%. In 2018, the tax system was regressive at the top-end; the top 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower average tax rate than the macroeconomic tax rate of 29%. We confront our methods and findings with those of other studies, pinpoint the areas where more research is needed, and describe how additional data collection could improve inequality measurement.

中文翻译：

---

美国收入和财富不平等的加剧：来自分配宏观经济账户的证据

本文通过分配宏观经济账户（美国官方宏观经济账户中记录的收入和财富总量的综合分布）研究美国的不平等。我们使用这些分配宏观经济账户来量化自 1970 年代后期以来收入和财富集中度的上升、税收累进性的变化以及政府干预经济的直接再分配效应。从 1978 年到 2018 年，收入最高的 1% 人的税前收入份额从 10% 上升到 19% 左右，而最富有的 0.1% 人拥有的财富份额从 7% 上升到了 18% 左右。2018年，税制在高端递减；前 400 名最富有的美国人缴纳的平均税率低于 29% 的宏观经济税率。