Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2005 ( C  2005) DOI: 10.1007/s10672-005-1813-z Rising Income Inequality in a Time of Plenty: The Influence of Micro-Justice Standards and Group Membership on Macro-Justice Perceptions Patricia A. Simpson 1,3 and Michelle Kaminski 2 Rising income inequality in the 1990s was used to examine the links between micro- and macro-justice. Data from a sample of 119 managers and 334 union members supported our hypothesis that those who more strongly endorsed equality norms at the micro-justice level perceived macro-level income inequality as more unjust. Looking at two key subgroups, our hypothesis that union members were more likely than managers to endorse an equality norm was not supported. Yet managers were significantly more likely than union members to endorse an equity norm at the micro level, as predicted. Finally, our fourth hypothesis that the equality norm mediates the relationship between union membership and perceived injustice was not supported. KEY WORDS: income inequality; organizational justice; distributive justice; CEO pay. The rewards of the economic boom of the 1990s have not been enjoyed by all segments of society. Despite the longest economic expansion in the post-World War II era, income inequality increased in the 1990s. The average income of lowest-income families grew by only 1%, that of middle-income families by under 2%, and that of high-income families by approximately 15% (Bernstein et al., 2000). Even with recent increases in real wages due to tight labor markets, income inequality in the United States remains at its highest levels since the Census Bureau began to track this type of data in 1947 (Bernstein & Mishel, 1999). The compensation of Chief Executive Officers averaged 419 times as much as a factory worker employed by the same company (Reingold & Grover, 1999). In the popular press, Ehrenreich (2001) demonstrated how challenging it can be to make ends meet on the federal minimum wage. And Klandermans et al. (2001) find that social class—which income is a component of—is becoming a more important factor than race in defining grievances, even in the context of South Africa. The trend of increasing abundance for the wealthy few, coupled with minimal income growth for the majority, provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between 1 Institute of Human Resources & Industrial Relations, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, Illnois. 2 School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. 3 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Institute of Human Resources & Industrial Relations, Loyola University Chicago, 820 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois; e-mail: psimpso@luc.edu. 47 0892-7545/05/0300-0047/0 C  2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.