Income Inequality?

[Truthseeker]

There is a simple explanation why the ultrawealthy have been able to increase their control of the world's resources: inflation, especially since the inception of central banks' ultra-low interest rates. The economic elites can borrow massive amounts of money cheaply. Need I explain what they can do with such colossal masses of cash? Incidentally, it is not 1% of the population. It's more like 0.01% IIRC. Also, the elites can get legislation passed that benefits them to the demerit of the masses. Example, tax breaks.

[lilpixieofterror]

It doesn't start at zero because this particular chart uses 1993 as a baseline.

And a bonus of not starting at zero makes the difference look that much bigger or adjusting the scale makes it look bigger or smaller. I did take these courses too Sam. I know how to make charts and how to adjust the scales to make the gap look that much bigger or smaller. I went to college and high school too.

Therefore, 1993 is "100%" — what this chart shows is that both GDP and real median household income increased from 1993 to ~1998. GDP continued to increase but real median household income began to decline. If you track real household income back several decades, you'll find that most household incomes have experienced either no real growth (stagnation) or have actually declined (as has been shown on this thread by noting the minimum wage, in real dollars, has declined from a high of over $10/hour in the late 60s to its current $7.25/hour).

As I said above Sam, charts can be made to look better or worse, depending on how you make the data appear. By adjusting the chart baseline, you make the gap look far larger than it really exist. Likewise, by ignoring key pieces of data (such as the fact that less than 5% of the total population makes min wage to start with or that people are getting married later on in life and thus, household income are different). Don't worry though, ignoring data is how wealth

Wikipedia can explain what's measured in household income:

Source: Household Income In the United States. Wikipedia. Accessed 2014.10.28

A household's income can be calculated various ways but the US Census as of 2009 measured it the following way: the income of every resident over the age of 15, including wages and salaries, unemployment insurance, disability payments, child support payments received, regular rental receipts, as well as any personal business, investment, or other kinds of income received routinely.[5]

The residents of the household do not have to be related to the head of the household for their earnings to be considered part of the household's income.[6] As households tend to share a similar economic context, the use of household income remains among the most widely accepted measures of income. That the size of a household is not commonly taken into account in such measures may distort any analysis of fluctuations within or among the household income categories, and may render direct comparisons between quintiles difficult or even impossible.

© Copyright Original Source

Sorry Sam, but I lived on my own for several years, but my total household income and changed greatly in the past 10 years. When I was living at home and made min wage, it looked bigger because I was living at my parents house and my income would have been totaled with their income. When I moved out, even though I got a 'raise' by being in the military; my total household income still went down, even when my personal income raised. Likewise, when I got married and my husband and I lived with his parents for a few months, the total household income jumped up. Now we are living in our own apartment, our household income has dropped, even though both of us have received raises and cost of living adjustments since that time. See the problem with your data charts yet and why counting total household income is a huge problem? It can jump up and down and all over the place, even if your personal income continues to increase. Thus, for your wealth redistribution stuff to actually work, you need to show individual incomes and their levels over the past 20 years.

[lilpixieofterror]

If you've read the whole topic and you think I'm arguing against vocational training or think that vocational training has anything substantial to do with the problem of income inequality then I'm sorry to have overestimated your ability to follow what I believe is a very simple argument. But as I've summarized it above and your response is "who are you to tell people what they can and can't do with their own money?" I imagine you do now understand the gist of the argument and we can put you in the set of people who have no real problem with very high levels of income inequality.

Never said that Sam, at all. I made a comment and your problem is that you just outright ignore all the problems with your logic and charts because you're trying to argue your point and not trying to reach the truth. There's tons of problems with your logic and that is just one of the many many problems with your logic. Your chart is also misleading, using household income vs personal income exaggerates the problem (since our society has changed in the past 20 years). See the problem with your logic yet? I'm following along just fine, the problem is that you're so wrapped up in your wealth distribution stuff, you're not looking at the flaws of your logic yet. My personal income has risen from my teen years to my current years. Despite my household income rising and falling, over the same period of time. Living situations in the 21st century are not the same as they were in the 1990's. I would think you would know this, but choose to ignore it because you want your income redistribution stuff to be true, thus you don't at critical problems with your faulty logic.

[Sam]

And a bonus of not starting at zero makes the difference look that much bigger or adjusting the scale makes it look bigger or smaller. I did take these courses too Sam. I know how to make charts and how to adjust the scales to make the gap look that much bigger or smaller. I went to college and high school too.



As I said above Sam, charts can be made to look better or worse, depending on how you make the data appear. By adjusting the chart baseline, you make the gap look far larger than it really exist. Likewise, by ignoring key pieces of data (such as the fact that less than 5% of the total population makes min wage to start with or that people are getting married later on in life and thus, household income are different). Don't worry though, ignoring data is how wealth



Sorry Sam, but I lived on my own for several years, but my total household income and changed greatly in the past 10 years. When I was living at home and man min wage, it looked bigger because I was living at my parents house and my income would have been totaled with their income. When I moved out, even though I got a 'raise' by being in the military; my total household income still went down, even when my personal income raised. Likewise, when I got married and my husband and I lived with his parents for a few months, the total household income jumped up. Now we are living in our own apartment, our household income has dropped, even though both of us have received raises and cost of living adjustments since that time. See the problem with your data charts yet and why counting total household income is a huge problem? It can jump up and down and all over the place, even if your personal income continues to increase. Thus, for your wealth redistribution stuff to actually work, you need to show individual incomes and their levels over the past 20 years.

[Cow Poke]

OK, Sam.....

You think CEO's make way too much money.
You think the government should, in some manner, take money from them to fund a minimum wage increase.

Is that correct so far? PLEASE try to give me the Reader's Digest version, OK?

Thanks

[Sam]

OK, Sam.....

You think CEO's make way too much money.
You think the government should, in some manner, take money from them to fund a minimum wage increase.

Is that correct so far? PLEASE try to give me the Reader's Digest version, OK?

Thanks

If the government raises the federal minimum wage then less profit will go to executives and shareholders, as more would then be going to minimum wage earners, yes. The government doesn't "take money" from CEOs to fund a minimum wage increase — the government simply legislates that the federal minimum wage is $9/hour or $10/hour or what have you.

And remember that the federal minimum wage in the late Sixties was ~$10/hour, if adjusted to 2014.

[Cow Poke]

And that helps who (whom?), exactly? Not all economists agree with you, Sam.

[Sam]

And that helps who (whom?), exactly? Not all economists agree with you, Sam.

Source: WashingtonExaminer.com

Most economists agree that the minimum wage cannot achieve its aim. Harvard economist Greg Mankiw’s “Ten things economists believe” is a list of statements that members of the economics profession finds uncontroversial. Here is one of the statements: “A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers.” This proposition is supported by 79 percent of economists.

James M. Buchanan, Nobel Prize winner for economics in 1986, put it thus:

“Just as no physicist would claim that 'water runs uphill,’ no self-respecting economist would claim that increases in the minimum wage increase employment. Such a claim, if seriously advanced, becomes equivalent to a denial that there is even minimal scientific content in economics, and that, in consequence, economists can do nothing but write as advocates for ideological interests.”

The overwhelming majority of empirical studies into the effects of the minimum wage find that it erodes employment. In 2007, David Neumark of the University of California-Irvine and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve surveyed over 100 minimum wage studies published since the early 1990s. They discovered that over two-thirds of them found negative effects on employment, while only about an eighth found positive effects. Worse, those studies that focused on the low-skilled people including youths found particularly bad damage done.

© Copyright Original Source

I already cited a poll of economists showing that the consensus is that a minimum wage increase is a net positive for the economy and benefits workers. Mankiw sort of discredited himself leading Romney's pledge to cut taxes at the top bracket without increasing taxes on the middle class while remaining revenue-neutral. When an economist backs a plan that's mathematically impossible, one starts to wonder about his competence. In any event, you're arguing a bait n' switch — no one has claimed that an increase in minimum wage will increase the number of jobs. Indeed, I wrote much earlier that the CBO estimates an increase in minimum wage to cost anywhere between zero and one million jobs in the short term. But the benefits of increasing the minimum wage, including drawing over five million people out of poverty, were considered to outweigh the potential losses, according to economic consensus.

[Sam]

And that helps who (whom?), exactly?

Forgot to answer this. It clearly helps the millions of people earning minimum wage. As mentioned earlier, an increase to $9 or $10 per hour is expected to bring over five million people out of poverty and increase household income for millions more.

It'd be a funny thing to argue that increasing wages helps nobody!

[Cow Poke]

I already cited a poll ...

So, just out of curiosity, what do you hope to gain here?

[Cow Poke]

Forgot to answer this. It clearly helps the millions of people earning minimum wage.

No, Sam -- it's not "settled science".

[Sam]

No, Sam -- it's not "settled science".

You were previously touting your success in helping people move into higher-paying jobs. Do you have any real doubt that the higher income they received helped them in material ways? This seems virtually axiomatic.

[Sam]

So, just out of curiosity, what do you hope to gain here?

Hopefully, at some point, we'll have enough people who acknowledge that income inequality is worsening, that this poses real harm to the vast majority of Americans and the economy as a whole and we will have the collective desire and willpower to avoid becoming a plutocracy. I would hope to gain, in a discussion on this topic, an empirical common ground where people could at least acknowledge what the data says and what that means. In doing so, we're clearly seeing a separation of people who agree this is a real problem that necessitates a solution and people whose ideological commitment to "Who are you to say what someone has to do with their own money" disassociates them from such civic responsibilities.

[Cow Poke]

You were previously touting your success in helping people move into higher-paying jobs.

Yes, that actually WORKS!

Do you have any real doubt that the higher income they received helped them in material ways?

None whatsoever.

This seems virtually axiomatic.

Well, my comment about something being "not settled science" was NOT concerning somebody EARNING their way up the ladder --- it's the notion that increasing the minimum wage is the way to do it. You can cite polls or surveys or stats that show it does, and I can do likewise showing it doesn't.

I'm not sure if you're just being snitty, or you really don't get it.

[Cow Poke]

Hopefully, at some point, we'll have enough people who acknowledge that income inequality is worsening, that this poses real harm to the vast majority of Americans and the economy as a whole and we will have the collective desire and willpower to avoid becoming a plutocracy. I would hope to gain, in a discussion on this topic, an empirical common ground where people could at least acknowledge what the data says and what that means. In doing so, we're clearly seeing a separation of people who agree this is a real problem that necessitates a solution and people whose ideological commitment to "Who are you to say what someone has to do with their own money" disassociates them from such civic responsibilities.

Hmmmm... what's the active population of Tweb? And what percent of those are influenced by your opinion? And even if there WERE some here --- do you honestly believe that's going to have ANY affect on your goal of raising the minimum wage?

I mean, seriously... . do you actually think you're making an impact here?