Income Distribution and Inequality Quiz

Question 1Five equally sized income groups receive 12, 18, 24, 30, and 66 million dollars. Find the highest quintile’s share of total income as a percentage, rounded to one decimal place.

Enter a number in %.

Answers within 0.05 % of the expected value are accepted.

Question 2An illustrative distribution gives its top quintile 42% of income and its bottom quintile 7%. Find the top-to-bottom share ratio with no unit, rounded to two decimals.

Enter a number.

Answers within 0.005 of the expected value are accepted.

Question 3A household receives $37000 in market income and $4500 in cash transfers, and pays $6200 in direct taxes. Find disposable income in dollars, rounded to two decimals.

Enter a number in dollars.

Answers within 0.005 dollars of the expected value are accepted.

Question 4Two distributions have the same Gini coefficient. Which statement about them is justified?

Households in the two samples have matching numbers of membersPurchasing power is the same in the currencies used by both samplesThe gaps at particular ranks remain unspecified by this summaryIncome shares match at corresponding ranks in the two populations

Question 5A retired person has little current earnings but owns valuable assets after debts. Which distinction explains this combination?

A high tax rate inferred directly from the property valueA modest income over a period alongside substantial net wealthA low asset total implied by the small current paycheckA large wage payment hidden within the definition of retirement

Question 6Pay gaps widen after demand for a scarce skill increases. Which mechanism fits the observation?

Stronger competition for a limited group of qualified workersIdentical bargaining positions across all available occupationsA fall in the value employers place on the sought-after skillA change in household size that directly sets each hourly wage

Question 7A transfer program is judged from its published eligibility rules. What additional evidence is needed to assess the resulting distribution?

The largest permitted benefit awarded to each resident in the dataThe actual payers and recipients, including responses to the rulesHouseholds made better off in proportion to the program’s titleThe headline tax rate fixing the burden on every household

Question 8An annual snapshot places a worker near the bottom during temporary unemployment. What does following the same person over time add?

Evidence about movement between positions and its persistenceA guarantee of equal opportunities for children across familiesA replacement for identifying whose incomes were sampledProof that the current loss of resources has no consequences

Question 9A study compares full-time workers’ wages with another study’s household resources among all residents. What should be checked first?

The reported averages as interchangeable household living standardsThe order of publication as the test of which measure is validThe units, populations, and resource definitions in the comparisonThe number of decimal places used in the two final statistics

Question 10Lower incomes rise while top incomes rise faster. Which conclusion follows without a fixed-pie assumption?

An increase at the top requires a cash loss at the bottomWider gaps mean the total amount of income must have fallenThe bottom’s improvement requires unchanged relative sharesImprovement at the bottom can accompany wider relative gaps

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Income Distribution and Inequality Quiz

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