The new Income Distribution Analysis Tool (IDAT), released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), allows users to easily build custom tables, maps, and charts within BEA’s platform. Fueled by data from the distribution of personal income statistics , data is available at the national and state levels and covers various income series, distribution metrics, and more. The number of years available varies by selection, with some having 25 years of data available. The tool may be useful for economic developers and academic researchers to evaluate the effectiveness of significant policy decisions by helping assess changes over time in the standard of living for various areas of the country.
As an example of the IDAT in action, SSTI used the "build a table” function for state data, selected all states, and the Gini coefficient distribution measure to generate an Excel file. Then, reformatting and plugging that data into a visualization software, created an interactive map of all U.S. states’ Gini coefficients. The data in Figure 1 below is divided into quintiles.
Figure 1: Gini coefficient by state, 2012-2023
The Gini index (or coefficient) is a summary measure of income inequality, ranging from zero (perfect equality) to 1 (perfect inequality). Perfect equality, or a Gini index value of zero, represents a situation where everyone receives an equal share of income, while perfect inequality (Gini index = 1) represents a single individual or group receiving all income. Read more about the Gini index in the World Bank’s glossary. Note that the World Bank defines economies with high inequality as those with a Gini index greater than 0.4; a condition shown in the SSTI tables to be experienced by most of the country.
Another example of the IDAT in action is the ability to compare one or more states’ inflation-adjusted median personal income. Using the IDAT’s state data, creating a time series graph for equivalized personal income and selecting states of interest, then selecting median personal income (constant 2017 dollars) under the income averages measure will generate both a line chart and a downloadable Excel or CSV file. A national equivalent overlay can be toggled using the switch above the chart.
Note that the IDAT is still in beta, and its features are being refined based on user feedback.