Another family factor contributing to increased income inequality is the growing share of families with no adult worker. In 1996, 7.5 percent of non-elderly families had no adult worker. These changes will not completely solve the dilemma of trying to summarize complex and diverse social and economic change with a single statistic. Nevertheless, they move toward a description of recent U.S. economic performance that comports more sensibly with what most American families have been experiencing. Reporting incomes on a more disaggregated basis is also important, because it reinforces another point of Samuelson's column, that many apparently economic problems have their root causes in individual choices and behavior, not in the markeplace or workplace.
Correct diagnosis is as important to good economic policy as it is to effective medical treatment.
Treating the wrong illness often produces unintended and negative consequences. The major difference is that incorrect economic policy can impose costs on nearly everyone. 2 Comparisons between 1979 and 1996 come from Current Population Survey tabulations, which are available above. We acknowledge the original formatting and analysis by Katherine Bradbury, whose data we have updated. Even without correcting for the CPI's overstatement of inflation, average real income for this family type increased by 22 percent between 1979 and 1996.