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wwarnout t1_j1f51uw wrote

On a related note, the tax rate on top earners has been steadily going DOWN since the 50s. See https://video.twimg.com/tweet_video/EX62u9bXsAUtRO8.mp4

Think this might be related in inequality?

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Figuurzager t1_j1fhwu2 wrote

It can start trickling down any moment!

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Suitable-Airport-644 t1_j1ftllt wrote

Hahaha. Fucking trickle down economics is a crime against humanity. Can you believe that asshole won a Nobel prize?

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Til_W t1_j1hrcv8 wrote

"Trickle Down Economics" isn't real, it never was actual serious economic theory (let alone consensus), but rather used as a political strawman.

When people accuse economists of promoting TDE, it is usually a mischaracterization of actual theories.

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theclitsacaper t1_j1gsgiz wrote

Economics doesn't have a Nobel Prize

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Suitable-Airport-644 t1_j1gsssr wrote

You sure about that?

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1976/ceremony-speech/

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ssatyd t1_j1h6vsx wrote

It's the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel", which has been created in the 70s, so it's not really the same as the other Nobel Prize categories that were conceived and funded by Alfred Nobel himself. I agree that It would be a bit weird to just add another category when those were clearly laid out in Nobel's will, hence i share the sentiment that there is no "true" Nobel prize in economics.

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MagicPeacockSpider t1_j1ijq1z wrote

Considering the only point it's been proven that wealth gets redistributed from top to bottom with the current right wing model is inheritance tax (which they want to cut) and following generations spending the money (which they try and avoid with trusts.

You're not actually wrong.

As those who have benefitted from these terrible economic policies did it will actually begin to trickle down.

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ENG_87 t1_j1h8sep wrote

Progressive tax systems don't work if the people at the top don't pay tax.

The only way to become ultra rich is to have a boost, ie rich parents. If you try to do it the traditional way by working hard you earn less for every extra hour you work until there is no point working any more.

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refreshing_username t1_j1f9x6p wrote

Shocked, SHOCKED I am that the people who make the rules keep tilting the table in their own favor.

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ChadMagic1 t1_j1gxkh5 wrote

Tax loss carry forwards allow this. If we eliminate that, we could lower taxes for the bottom 90%

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ndunks1 t1_j1i12r8 wrote

How would we fund our trillion dollar military budget???

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fuckknucklesandwich t1_j1hcksf wrote

In other words, everything is going exactly to plan.

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squanchingonreddit t1_j1i8kpp wrote

Exactly, you and I pay taxes even if we get fired and can't find a job while rich just get richer.

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argort t1_j1hkqu1 wrote

Most of the income of the richest 1 percent is not earned. A larger percentage of income is going to people who haven't earned it.

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GhostPepperIceCream t1_j1hs2lk wrote

And yet we keep voting for these two ruling class parties.

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scaffe t1_j1hzm17 wrote

Help to get ranked choice voting adopted in your locality.

That way voting for other candidates isn't "throwing away" a vote.

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SerialStateLineXer t1_j1hsqxr wrote

> while those in the bottom 90% saw their real earnings fall 0.2% between 2020 and 2021.

This sounds like an artifact of low-wage workers coming back to work after losing the extended unemployment benefits and pulling down the average.

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Artistic-Boss2665 t1_j1i5khp wrote

But the pie gets larger

Even though you make 1% less of the pie, the pie is 2% bigger (these are random numbers, but my point still stands, look at raw earning, not percent of all earnings)

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KODERKEN1 t1_j1j37lv wrote

You say inequality. I say diversity. I see a full range of income levels (including those below poverty level) as being healthy for society.

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JohnnyGoTime t1_j1j4id0 wrote

Correction:

What I actually say is, "Koderken1 you are an ignorant, privileged, self-indulgent piece of shit who I hope one day suffers the same heartache & agony you so casually prescribe to billions of fellow souls."

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FixItGuy1985 t1_j1gxtvw wrote

If you draw graphs & base articles SOLEY on social security wages & an inequality article you’ve lost me. I think we need to be more intellectually honest and present all the variables based on a multitude of sources. The incentive to claim unemployment during Covid and/or switch to alternative income methods that are beyond tracking methods was at an all time high. The gap growth between the top 1% and the rest of us is true but what happens in the true meat of our nation is beyond what this garbage article wants to try to dive into. I’m so so tired of narrative based metrics derived from a single source to prove a point. It defeats goals we might commonly share & potentially turns intellectuals away from a cause.

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ramenandloggin t1_j1h3kb7 wrote

>what happens in the true meat of our nation

what did you mean by this?

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Tokestra420 t1_j1hdcw9 wrote

I wonder if people keep this energy when they find out that globally, almost every person on Reddit is in the Top 1%.

Or does this outrage only apply when it's people who aren't you?

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ImprovedPersonality t1_j1hiagg wrote

Maybe not the top 1% but certainly the top 10%.

But I agree with you. It’s also funny when you hear all the outrage about rich people polluting the planet.

Most of reddit is (comparatively) rich people who live in democratic countries and could easily and safely encourage change.

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ndunks1 t1_j1i17er wrote

Lol easily? Most people agree that climate change is an issue and want to deal with it. The system won't allow candidates who want to make a change

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ImprovedPersonality t1_j1i37u8 wrote

Here in Austria the green party has about 9% of votes. The right (ÖVP) and far right (FPÖ) parties have 20 and 27% respectively. Both parties barely admit that human made climate change is a thing and something should be done about it.

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Intoxinator t1_j1gf2b3 wrote

Something showing the relative numbers of people in each percentile over time would make this more interesting. If there are people moving up overall, that’s a good outcome.

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sillychillly OP t1_j1gfjec wrote

It literally is showing the number of people in each category :) haha

That’s what the percentiles represent

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Intoxinator t1_j1gu5yn wrote

No, it doesn’t. It shows the percentages of wage earners. It makes no distinction as to the actual growth in workers in each percentile. Only the relative differences.

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chaandra t1_j1gngtn wrote

How would that be a good outcome? It’s all relative to population total, that’s how percentages work.

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Intoxinator t1_j1guti0 wrote

That’s the issue with stats like this. They don’t tell the full story. Sure, it’s nice for driving a 1 dimensional ideological argument, but it doesn’t reveal the whole picture. More people working that weren’t previously, are going to feature in the bottom percentiles. Nobody comes out of long term unemployment, or starts a first job in the top 1%. Conversely, as economies grow and innovation thrives, people have the opportunity to elevate through the top percentiles. At the same time, people that were in the top 1% drop back as their circumstances change. It’s not like there’s a room of 1%ers that are sitting around for 40 years getting richer and richer. Further, what are the wages in each percentile and how do they relate to standard of living?

It’s not just as simple as rich = bad and they got there at the expense of the poor.

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DerJuppi t1_j1hl2hj wrote

> More people working that weren’t previously, are going to feature in the bottom percentiles.

True, if they used to be counted as earning 0$, they are positively counting towards the bottom percentile no matter their new earnings. Since they are not, their low wage could contribute negatively to the bottom percentile, but the question is, how many people are affected by this. Overall, since the unemployment rate has lowered since the 1970s, there is probably a measurable effect, but those people are also affected by low (entry) wage growths on average. Additionally, in the 1970s, many households required only one earning parent, while it has become more common for both to be working (and possibly part time, thus lower wages). However, this might also be a cause of low wage growth for medium to low incomes. This is not entirely clear from the article, it is debatable how much this is relevant though.

> Nobody comes out of long term unemployment, or starts a first job in the top 1%.

You sure about that? You know how inheritance and nepotism work?

> Conversely, as economies grow and innovation thrives, people have the opportunity to elevate through the top percentiles. At the same time, people that were in the top 1% drop back as their circumstances change.

That metric is called social mobility and does not necessarily correlate with either economic growth (e.g., natural resource exploitation causes growth but generally lowers social mobility) nor innovation. And assuming if people elevated to a higher percentile under a constant number of people, someone else automatically drops from the higher percentile to the lower one and subsequently raises the average income of that percentile while doing nothing for the wage of the remaining people in the lower percentile who did not elevate. In that sense, a raise in lower percentile wages does not imply any positive effect for the majority of people, if raises are very selective.

> It’s not like there’s a room of 1%ers that are sitting around for 40 years getting richer and richer.

Yes there is, possessing large amounts of wealth lead to large incomes due to appreciation of assets (which also outpaced employment wage growth for the past 40 years). Taxation loopholes amplified this effect.

> Further, what are the wages in each percentile and how do they relate to standard of living?

The exact numbers are in the article. The standard of living is difficult to measure, since the effect of inflation is different for each percentile (due to different consumption), but generally wage growth often did not outpace inflation for the bottom 90% (avg wage growths of 0.6% yearly). Here is the section in the article:

"This upward distribution of wages over the long term has meant slow wage growth for those in the bottom 90% of the wage distribution—alternatingly slow and stagnant increases in living standards for much of the last 40 years."

The even bigger problem that income inequality is wealth inequality since wealth is providing income, is inheritable and vast societal and political powers and freedoms are linked to personal wealth.

> It’s not just as simple as rich = bad and they got there at the expense of the poor.

No, it does not mean rich=bad, but it is a bad sign for the economic situation of medium to poor income level people. However, there is an argument that this is at the expense of the poor, since the government could raise wage growth for the bottom percentile at the expense of the rich to at least even out the growth of difference in wages, however it does not, which is effectively bad for the poor. Wealth inequality would still grow regardless.

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Intoxinator t1_j1gu0wx wrote

If more people are being lifted out of poverty over time, that’s a good thing. This doesn’t show the numbers of wage earners, it just shows the percentages of wage earners. If the numbers in each group is growing, there are more people in the top 1 % earning more money. Same applies for each percentile. Even in the lower percentiles, if there are more people earning, that’s a good thing for everybody.

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Intoxinator t1_j1guy63 wrote

Thomas Sowell has written some books on economics that cover stuff like this. Recommended reading.

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DeadNotSleeping86 t1_j1g8tj5 wrote

Important note that wealth is not a zero sum game. There isn't a finite amount of it to go around. It's possible for everyone to get wealthier on average, and the data appears to reflect this.

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sillychillly OP t1_j1g9qjn wrote

The data shows a disproportionate amount of wealth increasing for people the richest among us.

That’s the issue.

It’s fine for everyone’s life to get exponentially better. But it’s not cool when a small percentage of people are becoming obscenely more wealthy while most people become poorer

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JohnCocktoastener t1_j1gh51m wrote

People aren’t becoming poorer

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chaandra t1_j1gnkrq wrote

In certain ways, they are. In terms of owning a home, they are. In terms of supporting family on one income, they are. In terms of paying for goods, they are.

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sillychillly OP t1_j1gjqqu wrote

Inflation has outpaced many people working class wages. It’s not just this years inflation, it’s inflation overtime

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Intoxinator t1_j1gvd4b wrote

On this we agree. Excessive, reckless spending is driving this. How much did the US Gov just agree to spend? How many trillions of dollars? And for what? This won’t end well if we continue on this path.

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urmomaisjabbathehutt t1_j1h2gm8 wrote

Is more how the profit of our effort has been distributed than how much the goverment spent

And studies show that goverment spending has a weak effect on inflation

https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2022/08/25/does-government-spending-cause-inflation/

The issue with wealth inequality is that a very small percent of the population gets an even bigger increase of the cake and contributing less to the common wealth, ehile the middle classes and the poor see hardly any increase in wealth

like Uncle scrooge said, the hardest part is to make the first million

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Intoxinator t1_j1h3nju wrote

“Aggregate demand might increase because there is an increase in spending by consumers, businesses or government, or an increase in net exports. As a result, demand for goods and services will increase relative to their supply, providing scope for firms to increase prices (and their margins – which is their mark-up on costs). At the same time, firms will seek to employ more workers to meet this extra demand. With increased demand for labour, firms may have to offer higher wages to attract new staff and retain their existing employees. Firms may also increase the prices of their goods and services to cover their higher labour costs.[2] More jobs and higher wages increase household incomes and lead to a rise in consumer spending, further increasing aggregate demand and the scope for firms to increase the prices of their goods and services. When this happens across a large number of businesses and sectors, this leads to an increase in inflation.”

US just pumped a trillion dollars of spending into the economy. That’s not going to be a weak effect on inflation.

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urmomaisjabbathehutt t1_j1h5dhb wrote

The link i provided refer to that

so the while the case study of St lous federal reserve indicate that goverment spending had little to no effect

On the other hand, modern studies have found that the current link between government spending and inflation may be stronger.In particular, the 2022 inflation spike followed two major federalspending programs under two administrations. The first, the CARES Act, passed in March 2020, while the American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021.Collectively, these initiatives aimed to minimize the economicdevastation of Covid-19 by distributing three stimulus checks, expanding unemployment benefits and providing extra funds to state and local governments.While experts have credited these Acts with possibly preventing a recession, economists have also found that their passage correlates with an unusual spike in inflation. By providing extra capital to American households, economists note, consumers were able to go out and spend money they wouldn’t have had otherwise. In turn, this increased consumer demand, pulling up prices.However, a recent analysis from the San Francisco Federal Reservefound that government spending only contributed to about threepercentage points of today’s inflation. These findings corroborate an October 2021 paper that suggested stimulus checks made inflation slightly worse – but not to the extent we’re seeing now

basically if they are right goverment spending may affect inflation depending on how is been used but is not the cause the main reasons for the current inflation we are seeing

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Intoxinator t1_j1h4j2c wrote

Also, some irony in a post from Forbes to support your argument. Particularly given that the contributor was Q.ai founded by Stephen Mathai-Davis who was undoubtedly part of the 1% being targeted in this post.

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urmomaisjabbathehutt t1_j1h7h3r wrote

You mean the rest of the economist are low paid working class?

your link what can cause inflation

mine refer to the actual result when they quantized for the effect of goverment spending

if you found that St lous federal reserve and st Francisco federal reserve studies have no merit, fine point to it

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ExploratoryCucumber t1_j1hmde4 wrote

Yes there is. Do you think countries can just print infinite money? Do you think the world has infinite resources?

Stop getting your opinions from garbage econ propaganda

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OnAPrair t1_j1hv4gw wrote

  1. Countries do print money
  2. Wealth is not just money. The size of the pie shrinks and grows.
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ExploratoryCucumber t1_j1hvdlv wrote

  1. Yeah? What happens when they do that?

  2. However you slice it, the pie isn't infinite.

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OnAPrair t1_j1i39pr wrote

They cannot print infintitly there is a give and take, and you are correct the pie isn’t infinite. I agree that scarcity exists.

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Intoxinator t1_j1gv16p wrote

That’s a nuanced argument that’s not welcome here. Totally agree.

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