The jump in Gini ratio in 2009 is fully artificial

Figure 1 depicts the evolution of Gini ratio for various sizes of households. We mentioned before that in 2009 there was a revision to the procedures and bins of household income measurements during the Current Population Survey.  One can see that there is a jump in all household sizes between 2008 and 2009. Effectively, this jump is fully artificial and there is no change between 2010 and 2011 as mentioned in blogs and academic papers.  Also notice that there was a fall in 2006 also induced by major revision in 2005. For all changes, the reader may check the Census Bureau web site.

All in all, the household Gini has not been really changing over time.

 Figure 1. The evolution of Gini ratio for various household sizes between 1998 and 2011.