I wasn't able to glean it from the website (on mobile) but what method is used to distinguish between the phenomenon of "the income distribution of the generati

I wasn't able to glean it from the website (on mobile) but what method is used to distinguish between the phenomenon of "the income distribution of the generation living here now is more than the previous generation" vs "for this specific family, the children make more than the parents" It's seems to me that if a government instituted policies that in effect make it so that poor people cannot survive given the other economic pressures (for example: restrictive new-housing permitting in SF) that that phenomenon could lead to a fallacious inference from "the income distribution of SF citizens has gone up!" to "this generation of SF citizens is earning more than their parents" Additionally, how meaningful is it to a child that their income is ~10% higher than their parents if their cost of living has increased beyond that. Essentially all the surplus has been consumed. Edit: it seems that the intergenerarional method is potentially sound "Linking Children to Parents Parent(s) defined as first person(s) who claim child as a dependent Most children are linked to parents based on tax returns in 1996 We link approximately 95% of children to parents"