It might surprise you... what's interesting is looking at a graph of all 3 measured gini coefficents.
What's interesting is that INDIVIDUAL Gini coefficent is actually LOWER then it was in 1994... while the other two are higher.
In otherwords, when talking about individuals, the rich haven't gotten richer in gini coefficent numbers. Only when put into the context of households or families is this the case. In fact, according to the gini coefficent, that number is shrinking. (slightly.)
What has changed since 1994? More single parent families, more dual parent families and people marrying far more often in their "economic bracket".
Single parent families are more likely to be poor, essentially by splitting them up into a case of "two".
Lets say you take a gini coefficent reading of eight couples who each make 50,000. Your gini coefficent would be 0.
Now lets say two of those families gets a divorce, now you have two households who make 25,000 and six that makes 50,000.
Your new household gini coeffcient is .375. Even though everyone is actually making the same amount of money as before.
It's plain to see where dual earner families come in, essentially they increase gini coefficent by the opposite result. They lower the number of households while increasing said household's wealth.
While marrying within your own Class, well that's obvious again.
Two couples, both make 10,000 a year, but they decide to swap partners, one problem though... they weren't making equal salaries. So instead of 10,000 you've got the "rich" couple bringign in 8,000 a piece at 16,000 while the poor couple only comes in at 4,000.
