TITLE:
Employment Type and Its Relationship with the Distribution of U.S. Family’s Full-Income
AUTHORS:
Hisham S. El-Osta
KEYWORDS:
Annuitized Wealth, Full-Income, Money Income, Survey of Consumer Finances, Economic Inequality
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.16 No.4,
August
11,
2026
ABSTRACT: Total family income is a common measure of the economic well-being of U.S. families. However, this economic indicator is highly variable due mostly to temporary disturbances in some of the components of total family income. This paper uses a subset of data from the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances to examine the dispersion in economic well-being based on a comprehensive indicator that combines income and annuitized wealth, which is referred to as ‘full-income’. The contributions of the various components of full-income toward inequality are assessed for families based on whether the family reference person in the survey is self-employed or works for someone else. The paper also considers the role of age and education, the most common indicators used in the literature to measure human capital, in inequality assessment.