By contrast, over half of the populations in Japan and in each of five European countries strongly agree that the government has such a responsibility.3 Americans' distinctive views about economic inequality may stem from two related beliefs about the way a just society ought to operate and the way their own society actually functions. A large majority of Americans believe that individuals should bear primary responsibility for supporting themselves, whereas voters in other rich countries are much more inclined to believe that governments have an obligation to ensure that everyone is provided for. Large majorities of Americans also believe their society offers an equal opportunity for people to get ahead and think that hard work ordinarily translates into a better life. This implies that changes in the distribution of tax burdens and noncash income generally paral- leled changes in the distribution of pretax cash income. The second problem with the Census Bureau's measure of inequal- ity is that it treats income received by different households as identical even if the number of family members differs.
Most people recognize that it takes more money to support a large household than a small one.
For example, the official poverty thresholds are based on the assump- tion that it takes twice as much income to support a family with four members as it does to support a single person who lives alone. The estimates of the changes in income inequality described in this chapter show the trend in overall inequality using the concept of equiv- alent personal income. This concept is based on the standard pretax cash income definition used by the Census Bureau, but it makes a family-size correction to reflect economies of scale in consumption enjoyed by people who live in families of different sizes. For a person in a single-person household, equivalent personal income is simply equal to the person's pretax cash income. For a person in a larger fam- iTy, equivalent income is less than the family's pretax cash income because that income must be divided among two or more members.28 26.