Does A Rising Tide Lift All Boats?

America’s full-time working poor reap limited gains in the new economy.

Document Highlights

The United States is in its fourth year of strong economic growth and low inflation and its ninth year of economic expansion, yet important distributional questions remain. This report, the first in a research program on the distributional issues associated with economic growth, uses a unique series of poverty statistics to investigate the distribution of economic gains, measured by a reduction of poverty among people working full-time and year-round.

Major findings:

• Poverty has risen in both the number and share of those employed full-time and year-round since 1973.
• Since the mid-1970s, long-term economic growth has had little impact on poverty among full-time workers.
• There are great differences in the poverty experience of full-time workers living in different regions of the country and belonging to different racial/ethnic groups.
• Ethnic minorities working full-time move in and out of poverty more often than whites.

Special features:

• a letter to readers from The Conference Board’s chief economist
• more than a dozen tables and charts
• a supplemental section on ‘Defining Poverty in the United States’