Recent events have focused attention on the perceived widening of the economic divide between urban and rural areas, and on the continued rise of national income inequality. We demonstrate that, in fact, the average income gap between urban (metropolitan) and rural (nonmetropolitan) households has not risen over the past 40 years, and makes virtually no contribution to national income inequality. Rising national inequality is driven by rising inequality within both urban and rural America, not by an urban/rural divergence. As is well known, the growing dispersion of household money income is partly driven by rising wage inequality, particularly in urban areas. Less well recognized is the role played by other income sources. We show that a decline in the progressivity of the distribution of social security payments and cash transfers, and an increase in the regressivity of the distribution of retirement incomes, have jointly made a comparably large contribution to rising income inequality. At the same time, the share of income from self‐employment has declined, particularly in rural America, and because self‐employment income is very unequally distributed, its diminution has retarded the growth of rural inequality. In 2014–15, however, rural inequality increased, cutting the urban/rural inequality gap in half.

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1975-2015年，美国的乡村和收入不平等

最近发生的事件将注意力集中在城乡之间经济鸿沟的扩大和国民收入不平等的持续加剧上。我们证明，事实上，过去40年来，城市（大都市）和农村（非大都市）家庭之间的平均收入差距没有增加，对国民收入不平等几乎没有任何贡献。国家内部不平等加剧是国家不平等加剧的原因不论是在美国的城市还是农村，都不会因城乡差异而受到影响。众所周知，家庭货币收入的日益分散，部分是由于工资不平等加剧，特别是在城市地区。其他收入来源所起的作用尚未得到充分认识。我们表明，社会保障金和现金转移支付的累进性下降，以及退休收入分配的回归性增加，共同为收入不平等加剧做出了较大贡献。同时，自雇收入的份额下降了，特别是在美国农村地区，并且由于自雇收入分配不均，其减少削弱了农村不平等现象的增长。但是，在2014-15年度，农村不平等加剧，