The Impact of Health Insurance on Measures of Income Inequality

Whether and how to include non-wage compensation and the value of government services in measures of household income continues to be a subject of debate. Richard Burkhauser (Sarah Gibson Blanding Professor of Policy Analysis, Cornell College of Human Ecology and ICS Fellow) and co-authors Jeff Larrimore (Joint Committee on Taxation) and Kosali Simor (Indiana University) argue that the including the value of employer- and government-provided health insurance coverage is important when analyzing income inequality. An earlier version of their work was referenced by the Congressional Budget Office in its 2011 study "The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes."  

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