It also adversely affects firms who must now hire fewer workers and pay them more. In the United States, the top 20 percent of the population earns over 44 percent of the total national income, and the bottom 20 percent of the population earns less than 5 percent of the national income. Lorenz curves provide an easy way to compare income distributions across countries or within the same country at different times. Poverty can be measured in two ways. The incidence of poverty is distributed unevenly across groups within the United States.
Age is one factor here.
Younger and older people make up most of the poverty group. Economic Resource Links Copyright Houghton Mifflin Company . All Rights Reserved.