The 1980s witnessed an unprecedented rise in inequality and poverty in the USA, despite a sustained expansion, which raises concerns about the appropriate policy actions needed to offset it. The papers collected in this volume explore the differing aspects of this problem such as the shrinkage of the middle class, the growing intergenerational wealth gap, the widening of the earnings gap between the college-educated and the high-school graduate, and the increasing dispersion of the distribution of family income, despite the increased labor force participation of women. The contributors also discuss the measurement issues involved in defining the poverty status, considering the earnings capacity, the health status and other more direct indicators of the living conditions of families.