EIA에서 미국에서 생산된 Crude oil이 어떻게 기차(rail)을 통해 이동하는지 잘 그림을 그렸네요. Pipeline을 통한 이동도 예전에 통계를 봤는데.

미국은 통계와 data의 천국이네요.

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http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=20592#tabs_Slider-5

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/02/an-eye-popping-gif-of-how-oil-moves-around-america/?wpisrc=nl_wnkpm&wpmm=1

미국 고용 3월 report가 완전 쇼크 수준입니다. 예상치에 크게 믿돌면서 미국 경제의 빨간불로 받아들여지네요. 다행히 좋은 뉴스는 이자율 빨리 못올릴것 같다는 예상이 되겠죠. 저유가가 장기화 되면서 미국의 에너지 섹터의 잡들이 영향을 받기 시작하는것 같습니다. 이번년 저유가를 계속 예상해야 할텐데, 미국 경제 지표가 버텨줄지 궁금합니다. 못버텨주면 어떻게 대응할지도 궁금해지네요.

이렇게 data를 잘 정리하고 예쁘게 그림 그리는 사람들 상줘야 합니다.

Bureau of Labor Statistics - 한국말로 노동 통계청 정도 되나요. 

http://www.bls.gov/

http://graphics.wsj.com/job-market-tracker/

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The U.S. has added 3.1 million jobs over the 12 months ended in March, which was down slightly from 3.2 million jobs for the period that ended in February.

The unemployment rate in March remained unchanged at 5.5%, while a broader gauge of underemployment that includes workers who have part-time jobs but would like full-time work ticked down to 10.9%, the lowest level since August 2008.

The unemployment rate fell further for college graduates, dropping to 2.5%. For high school dropouts, unemployment actually worsened last month, climbing to 8.6% from 8.4%.

The share of Americans participating in the labor force ticked down to 62.7%, matching the lowest level in 36 years. The share of Americans with jobs was unchanged at 59.3%.

A big part of the decline in the overall U.S. labor force owes to the aging of the U.S. population and the growing share of retirees. But even among so-called prime-age workers between 25 and 54 years old, labor-force participation and employment to population have dropped.

Average hourly earnings ticked up in March from February, but average weekly earnings posted the smallest annual gain since last June.

The number of workers who have been out of their jobs for more than six months has continued to decline but remains above the prerecession level.

The share of the unemployed who have been jobless for more than half a year fell below 30% for the first time since June 2009. The rate had been hovering around 31% for the last six months. This was the first big drop in long-term unemployment since August.

The median duration of unemployment dropped to 12.2 weeks from 13.1 weeks. This is still much higher than normal but less than half as long as during the worst of the recession.

Nearly all of the jobs added since the recession ended in June 2009 have been full-time positions.

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U.S. employers sharply slowed their hiring in March to the weakest pace in more than a year, the latest sign that the economy stumbled in the early months of 2015. Nonfarm payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 126,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, was unchanged at 5.5%.

• TREND

  197,000

  The economy added an average 197,000 jobs in the first three months of 2015, the weakest pace since early 2014. Last year, the U.S. added an average 260,000 jobs a month. The first quarter of 2015 looks a lot like the first quarter of 2014, when job growth averaged 193,000. The big question is whether the latest slowdown represents broader weakness or a temporary lull. Last year's weak first quarter was followed by a strong rebound.

•  

• REVISIONS

  -69,000

  Updated figures showed job growth was weaker earlier this year than previously estimated, with the economy adding 69,000 fewer jobs in January and February than previously estimated. Payrolls grew 201,000 in January instead of the previously reported 239,000 gain. Payrolls increased 264,000 in February, down from the initially reported addition of 295,000.

• WAGES

  2.1%

  Workers appear to be getting slightly bigger paychecks. Average hourly earnings of private-sector workers rose 7 cents in March from February, to $24.86. But growth is still modest historically. Over the past year, wages have grown 2.1%.

• LABOR-FORCE PARTICIPATION

  62.7%

  The labor force shrank last month, a sign of underlying weakness. The labor-force participation rate—or the share of working-age Americans with jobs or searching—fell to 62.7% from February's 62.8%. The labor force lost 96,000 workers last month. The participation rate is near the lowest level since the late 1970s.

• MINING AND LOGGING

  -11,000

  The mining and logging industry shed 11,000 jobs in March and has lost a total of 30,000 positions this year. That reflects weakness in the energy industry, suffering under a collapse in oil prices. But many service-providing sectors added jobs last month, including retail, health care and restaurants.

   

  -------------------------

내 꿈이 이루어지는 나라!

 이번주 최대 쇼킹한 뉴스라면 GoDaddy가 IPO에 성공해서 오늘날짜로 $4B market cap에 가까워졌습니다. 한국돈으로 4조-5조 되나요. 그동안 GoDaddy는 Nerd와 미녀를 역어 자극적인 광고를 잘(!) 해왔습니다. 상당히 자극적이라 잊혀지지 않는 광고. 그러나 광고는 기억하는데 GoDaddy가 뭐하는 곳인지 아는 사람은 거의 없고요. 왜 이름을 GoDaddy로 지었는지 아직도 모르겠습니다.

GoDaddy는 Web Hosting 업체지요.(이것도 뭐하는 회사인지 모르는 사람이 많지요) 이런 업체가 IPO를 할수 있고 성공할수 있다니, 정말 미국은 꿈이 이루어지는 나라입니다. 내가 자란 한국에서는 최소한 이런거 해서 창업해서 성공하기도 어렵고 겨우 밥먹고 살거나 몇년하다 망했거나 하지요. 경쟁도 심하거니와 진입장벽이 낮아 저가 덤핑도 많고 잘한다 하더라도 대기업이 인수해줄리 없고 써줄리 없고. 웹호스팅으로 GoDaddy 창업자들은 상당히 큰 부를 쥐었겠네요. 미국은 이런 것으로 창업해도 엄청난 부를 쥘수 있는 '내 꿈이 이뤄지는 나라입'니다.

저는 20년전부터 여러 호스팅 업체를 이용해봤지만, 이 회사는 상당히 interface고 깔끔하고 서비스 질도 좋습니다. 게다가 한발 담그면 서비스를 추가나 upgrade를 계속 권하면서 계속 차곡차곡 돈을 쌓더라고요. 아주 인상적이긴 했습니다. 저 처럼 돈 들이기 꺼려하는 사람도 낚아내는거 보면. 미녀를 동원한 마케팅도 잘 잡았다고 생각되는게, 웹호스팅 업체의 문을 두드리는 사람이 Nerd말고 누가 있겠어요. 초기에 미녀를 내세워 빠르게 수요자들은 끌어당겼다고 봅니다. 또 잘하고 있는것이 미국의 small business의 owner가 58% 여자라는 통계를 들어 이제는 미녀 마케팅을 중단한것으로 보입니다. 다른 cash flow를 만들어야지요.

전체적으로 좋은 회사라 생각하고 기술력도 마케팅도 좋다고 생각 하지만, 아무리 미국이지만, 이런 호스팅 회사가 오래갈수 있는 회사라고 보지는 않습니다.

*예전 첫화면중 하나, 예쁜 모델이 나와있어 하나 사고싶게 만드네요.

*2015/04/02 자 첫화면

이란 핵협상이 불발로 끝나나 했는데 미국대표인 존 케리 국무장관은 계속 협상중이라고 하네요. 러시아와 중국 대표가 어제 집에 돌아가서 타결은 어렵다는 이야기가 돌았는데, 미국이 아직 안돌아간것 보면 이란이 핵개발을 중지하겠다고만 하면 오늘이라도 타결될수도 있네요.

< 오바마, 백악관서 협상 지휘 > 버락 오바마 미국 대통령(맨 왼쪽)이 31일(현지시간) 백악관 국가안보팀을 긴급 소집해 이란 핵협상 전략을 논의하고 있다. 스위스 로잔에서 협상팀을 이끌고 있는 존 케리 국무장관이 영상을 통해 보고하고 있다. 워싱턴AFP연합뉴스

오늘 나온 뉴스에도 IEA에서 오일이 더 떨어질것이라는 경고가 있었나 봅니다.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-price-pressured-by-growing-inventories-1426242683

원유 매장량 순위

IEA가 발표하는 자료도 많이 있네요. Demand 도 계속 오르고 있는데 supply가 줄 생각을 안하네요. 이란이 두배로 늘린다고 가정하면 완전 폭락이네요.

https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/

https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/currentreport ; 상당히 detail한 리포트네요.

미국 Shale oil생산을 가늠할수 있는 Rig Count도 계속 줄고 있네요. 작년에 비하면 반타작 수준인데…

North America Oil Rig Count(http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=79687&p=irol-reportsother)

이런 말도안되는 일이. 중국 2.5년치가 미국 100치와 비슷할듯. 도대체 어디다 들이붙는거냐.

How China used more cement in 3 years than the U.S. did in the entire 20th Century

By Ana Swanson March 24 

China used more cement between 2011 and 2013 than the U.S. used in the entire 20th Century.

It's a statistic so mind-blowing that it stunned Bill Gates and inspired haiku. But can it be true, and, if so, how? Yes, China's economy has grown at an extraordinary rate, and it has more than four times as many people as the United States. But the 1900s were America's great period of expansion, the century in which the U.S. built almost all of its roads and bridges, the Interstate system, the Hoover Dam, and many of the world's tallest skyscrapers. And China and the U.S. are roughly the same size in terms of geographic area, ranking third and fourth in the world, respectively.

Bill Gates's GatesBlog

The statistic seems incredible, but according to government and industry sources, it appears accurate. What's more, once you dive into the figures, they have a surprisingly logical explanation that reveals some fascinating differences between the two countries, and some ominous realities about China.

Gates plucked the statistic from the historian Vaclav Smil, who callscement "the most important material in terms of sheer mass in our civilization." (In case you need a refresher, cement is a powdery lime-and-clay substance that is combined with water and gravel or sand to make concrete.) Smil got his estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey, whose figures for the American use of cement in the 20th Century are below.

U.S. Geological Survey

This chart shows some interesting economic trends – including dips in construction during the Great Depression, World War II and the recession of the early 1980s. All of America's cement consumption during the century adds up to around 4.4 gigatons (1 gigaton is roughly 1 billion metric tons).

In comparison, China used around 6.4 gigatons of cement in the three years of 2011, 2012 and 2013, as data below from the International Cement Review, an industry publication based in London, shows. U.S. Geological Survey estimates on China's cement consumption are similar: According to Hendrik van Oss, a mineral commodity specialist at the USGS, China's cement consumption between 2010–12 was about 140 percent of U.S. consumption for 1900–99.

U.S. Geological Survey and International Cement Review

Clearly, the amount of cement that China has used in recent years is just stunningly huge. Here it is as a cube, overlooking Chicago.

Courtesy of Rhett Allain

As a parking lot, it would cover Hawaii's big island:

Rhett Allain

So how did China use so much cement? First, the country is urbanizing at a historic rate, much faster than the U.S. did in the 20^th Century. More than 20 million Chinese relocate to cities each year, which is more people than live in downtown New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago combined. This massive change has taken place in less than 50 years. In 1978, less than a fifth of China's population lived in cities. By 2020, that proportion will be 60 percent.

China's cities have been transformed to make room for this influx of people. By some estimates, half of China's infrastructure has been built since 2000, with new rail networks, interstates, dams, airports and high-rise apartment buildings springing up across the country. For example, the gif below shows how Shanghai's Eastern Pudong District changed between 1987 and 2013. You can see why Spike Jonze chose Pudong as the setting for a city of the future in the recent movie "Her."

1987 REUTERS/Stringer, July 31, 2013. REUTERS/ Carlos Barria

More stunning than Shanghai's transformation is the growth of the Pearl River Delta, a megalopolis on the Chinese mainland across from Hong Kong. The manufacturing hub had 42 million inhabitants in 2010, according to the World Bank. If considered a single urban area – which makes sense, since the cities there all run together -- the Pearl River Delta would be the world's largest city by both area and population.

What's almost more impressive than China's biggest cities is the incredible number of "small" cities that no one has ever heard of. In 2009, China had 221 cities with more than a million people in them, compared with only 35 in Europe. Even relatively minor cities like Zhengzhou and Jinan are more populous than Los Angeles or Chicago.

Beyond China's incredible urbanization, there are a few more facts that make the cement stat even more believable. As Goldman Sachs pointed out in a note, China's population today is only about four times as large as the U.S., but it is 15 times as large as the U.S. was in the early 20th Century, and nine times the size of the U.S. in 1950.

The world also experienced a shift in building materials over the 20th Century. In 1950, the world manufactured roughly as much steel as cement; by 2010, steel production had grown by a factor of eight, but cement had gone up by a factor of 25. And where many houses in the U.S. are made of wood, China suffers from a relative lack of lumber. Unlike in the U.S., many people in China live in high- or low-rise buildings made out of cement.

Finally, China's cement industry is much larger than it should be. Many of China's cement manufacturers are state-owned, and they benefit from government support and access to cheap capital. As in other overcapacity state-owned industries -- aluminum, steel, and shipbuilding -- China's cement sector has undergone a period of explosive growth without much regard for product quality or profits.

This massive cement industry also takes a heavy toll on the environment. Scientists estimate that the global cement industry accounts for around 5 percent of the world's carbon emissions, and more than half of the world's cement production capacity is based in China.

What's more, low standards for construction quality mean some of China's concrete buildings may have to be knocked down and replaced in as little as20 or 30 years. According to Goldman Sachs, about a third of the cement that China uses is low-grade stuff that wouldn't be used in other countries.

When Bill Gates wrote in his blog about China's stunning cement consumption, he pointed out that the issue of materials is key to helping the world's poorest people improve their lives. Replacing mud floors with concrete improves sanitation; paving roads with concrete allows vegetables to get to market, kids to get to school, and the economy to flourish. In China, the building boom has spurred economic growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

And yet, China's massive cement use also points to a darker side of the economy: The waste that occurs with too much top-down economic planning, and the environmental toll of growth at all costs. China's cement splurge is impressive, yes, but it may hold the seeds of a more ominous story.

Ana Swanson writes for Know More and Wonkblog.

예전에 봤던 costco에서 일하는 사람들이 왜 자신감이 넘치는데 알게했던 기사. Walmart가 이번에 임금을 많이 올려줄 계획을 발표했으니 다들 좀더 더 오를수 있었으면 좋겠다.

Wendy's는 최저임금이 낮은곳에만 설립하는 것 같고, 맥도날드도 최저임금에 가까운 $9정도 될것 같다.

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http://money.cnn.com/2013/08/06/news/economy/costco-fast-food-strikes/

Source : WSJ

미국의 주택경기는 2007년 경제위기 몇년만에 주요도시 위주로 가파른 상승을 보여줬지요.

그렇지만 아직까지 2007년 버블까지 따라잡으려면 더 많은 노력을 해야겠네요. 여기에 이자율까지 오르면 어떤 상황이 벌어질지… 재밌겠네요.

좋은 사이트 : http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/

일본차들이 엔저로 공격적으로 가격을 낮추고 있다고 한것에 이어, 현대도 질수 없겠지요. 샌디에고는 대도시가 아니라 가격이 이 평균이상이라고 보면 될겁니다. 1시간만 LA쪽으로 올라가도 down pay가 반으로도 줄수 있가나, 살때 가격을 더 깍을수 있다는 것을 염두해둬야겠지요.

새차 3년이면 오일말고는 갈어줄게 거의 없으니 maintenance비용이 겁나거나 차 관리하기 어려운 분들에게는 리스는 좋은 딜이죠. 리스가 회사가 남는게 많아요. 리스비용을 받고 리스로 돌려받아 팔아서 남겨먹을수 있고.

소나타(Sonata)를 기준으로 $139에 36개월 deal이 있네요. $2000 down하고요. 3년 총비용이 $7040 + TAX쬐금 정도 되네요. 상당히 좋은데요. 캠리보다 더 공격적이군요. LA에서 구하면 3년에 $6000대에서 구할수 있을것 같네요.

놀라운건 제네시스,

$299 x36 + 2000 = $12764 + tax쬐금으로 리스 3년 총 비용으로 상당히 매력적이네요. 물론 제 형편엔 3년에 만불넘어가면 어려고 10년에 만불이 좋은데 ㅋㅋㅋ.

불평등의 경제학. 미국 대도시의 상위5%와 하위 20%의 차이를 track하는 data. 아틀란다(Atlanta) 가 가장 심하다고 한다. 추세가 점점 벌어지고 있는듯.

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Some cities are still more unequal than others
—an update

By: Alan Berube and Natalie Holmes

More than five years after the end of the Great Recession, and three years since the Occupy movement took on Wall Street, high and growing levels of income inequality continue to animate debates on politics and public policy. Inequality provided the economic backdrop for President Obama's 2015 State of the Union address, the recent report of a transatlantic Commission on Inclusive Prosperity, and one of the most talked-about books of 2014, French economist Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century.

Although each of those examples focuses on the actions that national governments should take to address inequality, continued gridlock in Washington has inspired growing interest and activity at the sub-national level around ameliorating inequality and promoting social mobility. In 2014 alone, 14 states and the District of Columbia enacted increases in their minimum wages. Many cities adopted or considered similar measures, most notably Seattle, which is raising its minimum wage to $15/hour by 2017. Some observers argue that cities themselves are better positioned to enhance social mobility for low-income residents than the federal government.

This report updates a 2014 analysis that looked at levels of income inequality in the 50 largest U.S. cities, and examines in particular trends between 2012 and 2013, the most recent data available from the U.S. Census Bureau. Like the earlier analysis, it focuses on incomes among households near the top of the distribution—those earning more than 95 percent of all other households—and households closer to the bottom of the distribution—those earning more than only 20 percent of all other households. It then measures the gap between the two, or the "95/20 ratio." All dollar amounts are adjusted for inflation to 2013 levels.

Large cities remain more unequal by income than the nation overall

In 2013, big cities continued to exhibit greater income disparities between rich and poor households than the rest of the country (Figure 1). Across the 50 largest cities, households in the 95th percentile of income earned 11.6 times as much as households at the 20th percentile, a considerably wider margin than the national average ratio of 9.3. This difference reflects the fact that in big cities the rich have higher incomes, and the poor lower incomes, than their counterparts nationally. From 2012 to 2013, the inequality ratio widened in both cities and the nation overall, as incomes at the top grew somewhat faster than incomes at the bottom. Notably, incomes grew faster for both the rich and poor in cities than they did elsewhere.

DOWNLOAD

• City Inequality 2013 Appendix

17 KB

AUTHORS

Alan Berube

Alan Berube is a senior fellow and deputy director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. A former policy advisor to the U.S. Treasury Department, he is an expert on metropolitan demographics, low-wage workers, and urban poverty.

@berubea1

Natalie Holmes

Natalie Holmes is a senior research assistant at the Metropolitan Policy Program. Her work focuses on poverty, access to opportunity, and tax policies that support low-income workers and communities in metropolitan America.

In 12 of the 50 largest cities, the rich became significantly richer between 2012 and 2013

Several cities witnessed dramatic growth in the incomes of their highest-earning households between 2012 and 2013 (Table 1). In 12 cities, incomes for the 95th percentile of households in 2013 exceeded those in 2012 by a statistically significant margin. Seattle topped the list with 15 percent growth in income among those households, equivalent to a $36,000 increase. The three cities with the next-largest increases at the 95th percentile—Cleveland, Jacksonville, Fla., and Louisville, Ky.—are not generally regarded as wealthy cities, and indeed the 14 percent increases they registered near the top translated to lower increases in absolute dollar terms ($21,000 in Jacksonville and Louisville; $14,000 in Cleveland). Incomes for wealthy households also jumped by double-digit rates in San Jose, Calif., Dallas, and Portland, Ore.

In only one of the 50 largest cities—Albuquerque, N.M.—did 95th-percentile incomes decline from 2012 to 2013. The Albuquerque region has struggled economically in recent years, and weak growth there seems to have affected households near the top.

While not statistically significant, the estimated rate of income growth for rich households in San Francisco topped 18 percent, equivalent to a $66,000 bump. The Census Bureau does not provide enough data on high-income earners in San Francisco to conclusively demonstrate that increase, but the trend is consistent with anecdotal evidence on growing concentrations of very-high-paying jobs and households in that city.

San Francisco also stands apart from the pack in just how rich its richest households were in 2013 (Figure 2). They earned at least $423,000, more than $100,000 clear of their counterparts in San Jose. Wealthy households in Washington, D.C. were the only other group whose incomes topped $300,000 in 2013. These cities contrasted sharply with Detroit, where incomes at the 95th percentile reached only $108,000. And despite a significant increase from 2012 to 2013, incomes among Cleveland's top-earning households cleared just $116,000 in 2013.

Most high-income households in cities have recovered the ground they lost during the recession. By 2013, in only eight of the 50 largest cities were incomes for top-earning households significantly below their 2007, pre-recession levels. Las Vegas registered the largest dip, at 19 percent. In four cities—Cleveland, Portland, San Francisco, and San Jose—top incomes in 2013 significantly exceeded their 2007 levels.

In 11 of the 50 largest cities, low-income households made significant gains from 2012 to 2013

About one in five of the nation's largest cities posted significant income gains at the lower end of the distribution between 2012 and 2013 (Table 1). Jacksonville, San Francisco, Nashville, Tenn., Oklahoma City, and Kansas City, Mo. all posted double-digit increases in 20th-percentile incomes. In both Jacksonville and San Francisco, those translated to increases of at least $3,000 for households at that level. No cities experienced statistically significant income declines among lower-income households from 2012 to 2013.

Notably, cities where incomes grew at the top overlapped very little with those where incomes grew at the bottom. Of the 11 cities where 20th-percentile incomes increased by a statistically significant margin from 2012 to 2013, just two (Jacksonville and Houston) also posted gains at the 95th percentile. It thus seemed that households near the bottom of the income ladder did not benefit from the significant gains accruing to high-income households in many cities. By the same token, low-income households made progress in several cities—particularly Southern and Western cities like Nashville, Oklahoma City, Colorado Springs, Colo., and Austin, Texas—despite little movement at the top.

San Francisco again proved an exceptional story. The 20th-percentile income in that city rose from $21,500 in 2012 to $24,800 in 2013, a 15 percent jump that registered highest among the 50 cities. The Census Bureau data do not reveal, however, how much those gains accrued to low-income households who remained in San Francisco (or any other city, for that matter) versus how much they reflect changes in who lived in the city across those two years. Incomes near the bottom could have increased due in part to very-low-income households leaving the city, perhaps because of affordability challenges. The fact that Oakland, Calif. also saw significant income growth at the lower end may signal that a strong Bay Area economy lifted all boats; or low-income households in Oakland may have also experienced affordability pressures similar to their counterparts across the Bay.

Despite positive trends in some cities from 2012 to 2013, lower-income households in the majority (31) of the 50 largest cities had lower incomes in 2013 than they did in 2007. That contrasts sharply with the small number of cities (8) in which incomes declined at the top from 2007 to 2013. Incomes at the 20th percentile were down more than one-quarter from their 2007 levels in Sacramento, Calif., Indianapolis, and Las Vegas, reflecting the lingering impacts a severe recession had on lower-income households in those cities and regions.

Income inequality rose in two cities and fell in four others from 2012 to 2013

How incomes change at the top and bottom of the distribution in a city dictates how its level of inequality, measured by the 95/20 income ratio, changes as well.

Between 2012 and 2013, the inequality ratio rose by a statistically significant margin in just two cities (Table 2). In Cleveland and Dallas, incomes for the rich rose significantly while they stagnated for low-income households. At the other end of the spectrum, four cities posted significant declines in their inequality ratios, in most cases because low incomes rose while those at the top held steady. Kansas City and Nashville registered the largest inequality decreases. The relatively small sample of households in the Census Bureau data introduced too much uncertainty about changes in other cities to definitively conclude that inequality had increased or decreased there. Nevertheless, the fact that estimated inequality ratios rose in 42 cities, and fell in only eight, suggests that the predominant trend in these big cities is toward rising inequality.

Given these dynamics, the map of the most unequal cities in 2013 changed little from the previous year (Figure 3). Atlanta continued to lead the list, with top household incomes in that city nearly 20 times those near the bottom (Table 3). San Francisco still ranked second, with a 95/20 ratio of roughly 17. Boston moved up to third place at 15, while Miami dropped to fourth place thanks to modest income growth among its poorer households. Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles all remained in the top 10, while Dallas and Minneapolis moved in as Oakland and Baltimore moved out. Indeed, eight of the top 10 cities for inequality in 2013 also ranked in the top 10 in 2007.

The cities with the most equal distribution of incomes also remained largely the same from 2012 to 2013. All are geographically large cities that incorporate large swaths of suburban territory within their borders, and most are in the South and West. In addition, these cities are not home to the concentrations of technology and financial/professional services industries that pay the very highest salaries and that characterize many of the cities at the top of the inequality rankings.

Trends through 2013 left many cities with higher levels of inequality than they exhibited in 2007, prior to the recession. Twenty-one (21) of the 50 cities had a higher 95/20 income ratio in 2013 than in 2007. Atlanta and San Francisco, the cities with the highest inequality ratios in 2013, exhibited the largest increases in their ratios over that time. Interestingly, Cleveland's increase followed closely behind, driven by the modest gains its top-earning households made in 2013, combined with losses its low-income households suffered in earlier years.

Conclusion

These findings confirm that income inequality remains a salient issue in many big cities today. Moreover, they lend support to the concern that rising incomes at the top of the distribution are not—at least in the short term—lifting earnings near the bottom, even in local markets.

Since the debate over the $15/hour minimum wage started in Seattle in late 2013, many other cities—including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco—are considering or have enacted increases to the minimum wage locally. While the minimum wage is a potentially important means for helping low-earner households living in high-cost places, local policymakers should not ignore the other tools they have at hand—from education to economic development to housing and zoning policies—that are essential for improving social mobility and sustaining income diversity in big cities today.

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