Multimedia: Charts

Change in Family Earnings of Children, 1975-2010

October 7, 2011

The typical American child has not experienced an increase in resources during the last 35 years, a fact that highlights an increasing gap between children whose parents are at different ends of the earnings distribution. Children at the 90th percentile of the distribution of family earnings experienced a 45 percent increase in their family earnings over the last 35 years. At the same time, children at the 25th percentile of the distribution have seen declines in family earnings of over 20 percent. These trends are shown in the chart below:  Part of this widening gap involves changes in the labor market that disproportionately reward higher levels of education. In 2010, the family earnings of the median child in a family with at least one college-educated parent were about $92,000 per year, 14 percent higher than in 1975. At the same time, children living in families without a parent who had more than a high school diploma (including either single parent or married parent families) have seen their family earnings decline by 51 percent over the same period. Although the share of children living in a family with at least one college-educated parent has increased steadily over this time period, most children still do not enjoy this advantage: in 2010, just 36 percent of children lived with at least one parent who had a college degree.