Technology and social equality in the United States.

This paper presents empirical evidence on the link between social equality and technology waves in the U.S. 1860–2019. We measure the impact of various technology adoption by the U.S. households on their social condition (social equality). Using unbalanced panel data for the U.S., we measure the individual technology impact (wave) on social equality over the last 160 years. The findings indicate that technology substantially impacts social equality (proxied by the life inequality index). Technology's impact on social equality varies across technology waves so that we can conclude not all technology is equally suitable for people. Digital technology adoption is significantly improving social equality in the U.S. The results also confirm that technology waves alone in the U.S. can explain about 30 % of changes in social equality. Policymakers should look at technology as a strong driver of social equality and adjust social policy accordingly. Economic growth models in a digital revolution time must pay attention not only to the Solow (1957) residual but also on social equality as a source of growth. • Income inequality occupies a large part of the economics body of literature • Using univariate singular spectrum analysis (SSA) (Ghil et al., 2002) we build a new time-series database. • We use this database for U.S 1860-2019 to investigate the link between technology adoption and social equality in the U.S • Our results show that technology's impact on social equality varies across technology waves • Our research raises an important question about the role of technology in promoting social equality [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]