Recent research concludes that the rise in consumption inequality mirrors, or even exceeds, the rise in income inequality. We revisit this finding, constructing improved measures of consumption, focusing on its well-measured components that are reported at a high and stable rate relative to national accounts. While overall income inequality rose over the past 5 decades, the rise in overall consumption inequality was small. The declining quality of income data likely contributes to these differences for the bottom of the distribution. Asset price changes likely account for some of the differences in recent years for the top of the distribution.

No region of the United States fared worse over the postwar period than the Rust Belt. This paper analyzes how much of its decline can be accounted for by the persistent labor market conflict that characterized Rust Belt union-management relations. We develop a multisector, multiregion, dynamic general equilibrium model in which labor market conflict leads to strikes, wage premia, lower investment, and lower productivity growth. These lead to shrinking Rust Belt industries and to workers moving out of the Rust Belt. Labor conflict accounts for half of the decline in the region’s share of manufacturing employment. Foreign competition plays a smaller role, and its effects are concentrated after most of the region’s decline had already occurred.