Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018 by Carter C. Price, Kathryn A. Edwards

income.svg

plot.R

# Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018
# by Carter C. Price, Kathryn A. Edwards
# We can download the PDF here and find Table 2.b:
# https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-1.html

library(tidyverse)

d <- read.delim(header = FALSE, sep = " ",
  text =
"1975 $28,000 $42,000 $58,000 $77,000 $91,000 $257,000 $289,000
1979 $28,000 $42,000 $60,000 $82,000 $101,000 $226,000 $292,000
1989 $28,000 $43,000 $62,000 $88,000 $109,000 $349,000 $467,000
2000 $31,000 $47,000 $72,000 $109,000 $145,000 $830,000 $1,121,000
2007 $30,000 $46,000 $72,000 $115,000 $160,000 $1,058,000 $1,311,000
2018 $33,000 $50,000 $81,000 $133,000 $191,000 $761,000 $1,384,000
Counterfactual $61,000 $92,000 $126,000 $168,000 $198,000 $560,000 $630,000
"
)

for (i in 2:8) {
  d[[i]] <- readr::parse_number(d[[i]])
}

colnames(d) <- c(
  "year", "25th %", "Median", "75th %", "90th %", "95th %", "99th %", "Top 1% Mean"
)

d <- d %>% pivot_longer(-year)

d$name <- factor(
  d$name,
  c("25th %", "Median", "75th %", "90th %", "95th %", "99th %", "Top 1% Mean")
)

d$year_n <- as.numeric(d$year)
d$year_n[is.na(d$year_n)] <- 2020

ggplot(d %>% filter(year_n < 2020)) +
  aes(year_n, value, group = name, color = name) +
  geom_line(
    size = 2
  ) +
  scale_x_continuous(
    breaks = c(1975, 1979, 1989, 2000, 2007, 2018)
  ) +
  # scale_y_continuous(labels = scales::dollar) +
  scale_y_log10(
    labels = scales::dollar
  ) +
  annotation_logticks(sides = "l") +
  guides(
    color = guide_legend(title = NULL, reverse = TRUE)
  ) +
  theme_bw(base_size = 20) +
  theme(panel.grid.minor = element_blank()) +
  labs(x = NULL, y = NULL,
       title = "Income Distribution",
       subtitle = "for Full-Year, Full-Time, Prime-Aged Workers in 2018 Dollars",
       caption = "Carter C. Price and Kathryn Edwards, RAND Corporation")