Institute update: The IDDA road show

In our last issue, we introduced Income Distributions and Dynamics in America (IDDA), a powerful resource for advancing our understanding of incomes across America. The statistics in IDDA summarize extensive data from restricted IRS and Census Bureau records, providing a novel level of fidelity to income statistics for groups of earners defined by state, age, race and ethnicity, gender, and U.S.- or foreign-born status.

Since IDDA's launch, Institute economists and research associates have taken to the road, giving presentations about how IDDA was constructed, what statistics it contains, and the questions it can help answer. These presentations span academic conferences, government agencies, community organizations, and media outlets.

Reliable and granular data on diverse aspects of the economy are critical for policy evaluation. Such information helps summarize how Americans are faring economically, while long-term data can help identify how outcomes change with new policies and institutions. A number of U.S. government agencies help collect, report, and summarize such data. Institute Director Abigail Wozniak, Senior Economist Illenin Kondo, and Research Associate Natalie Gubbay have spoken with groups of economists and other staff at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Congressional Research Service, the Congressional Budget Office, and the Fed's Board of Governors to describe technical details about how the IDDA statistics were constructed and how the statistics can enrich analyses of income growth, mobility, and inequality.

One of the projects associated with IDDA is a research paper that explores income inequality and mobility patterns for different racial and ethnic groups. Wozniak presented the paper's methods and findings at the annual meetings of the American Social Science Association and the Society of Labor Economists. In addition, Wozniak presented to the National Bureau of Economic Research's Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, while Kondo presented at the National Economic Association's Freedom and Justice conference and the University of Minnesota's Data Science Initiative. These venues offered an opportunity to show how the IDDA statistics can help advance academic research as well as compare statistics in IDDA with other research and data sources on income inequality and mobility.

The statistics in IDDA are also a valuable resource for media and community organizations that want to better understand the income experiences of the communities they serve. In May, the Minnesota Star Tribune used IDDA in their reporting for a series of six in-depth articles that looked at income mobility for different groups of Minnesotans. In addition, Wozniak presented an overview of IDDA to Project for Pride in Living, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that helps lower-income individuals achieve housing stability and career readiness. And Kondo gave an overview of IDDA to fellows at the African American Leadership Forum, which uses social science data and research to develop solutions that promote racial equity. "When it comes to racial disparities, IDDA statistics can help better understand how trends in Minnesota or other states differ from nationwide patterns," Kondo said, highlighting how the granularity in IDDA can help identify where gaps are larger or smaller.

This article is featured in the Fall 2024 issue of For All, the magazine of the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute