Here it is, folks; real disposable income over time. Yes, it did dip somewhat in 2009 but the overall trajectory has been upward since 1969. I mean, I'm sorry but there it is.
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Fiscally Conservative, Socially tolerant, Anti-War
16 comments:
It would be interesting to see that broken down by income level.
I was thinking that, too, Jerry. I would just advise again that the income levels themselves are not fixed categories. A strong majority of people in the lowest quintile, for example, generally rise out of it within 8-9 years later.
It's EVERYONE'S income, right? That would include the income of wealthy people too. Are you sorry because this "proves" working people haven't gotten the shaft?
"Are you sorry because this "proves" working people haven't gotten the shaft?"
In actual fact, working people includes most of the wealthy.
Good point, dmarks. The bottom 99% earned 83.1% of the country's total AGI in 2009.
Very bad point, dmarks. It's commonly accepted that when talking about "working people", we're not talking about the 1 percent. Of course rich people may work (some of them hard), but I was using the definition accepted by the vast majority of people. I was not speaking in "dmarks-ese".
I notice, however, that Will failed to address my point. I'll take it then that he acknowledges that wages for working people USED to track productivity, but since the 80's that is no longer the case. That money was taken by the wealthy (which explains why their income has risen dramatically).
Will,
Mobility between levels occurs in both directions and is not really the issue here. A breakdown showing actual disposable income either in dollars or percent of income would show where the benefits of the increasing disposable income are going and who is or is not benefitting from it. At this point, one can only guess.
It's not an irrelevant point, Jerry. The assertion being made by the left here is that people are worse off than they used to be. They are not. a) Most of the people move up the economic scale (usually starting as teenagers and progressing forward) and b) the entire pie is getting bigger (so even if the ever-changing poor have a smaller slice of the pie, the pie itself has gotten significantly larger). It's also interesting that that same Treasury Department study shows that most of the DOWNWARD mobility took place with people in the highest quintile, which I'm assuming that you're not all that choked up about.
wd, the % of the pie going to the top 1% increased 11.7% from 1988 to 2009 but their % of the total income taxes went up 33.2%. That doesn't sound like a major league reaming to me. Also, the top 1% had 42.9% of the country's total financial wealth in 1983 and 42.7% of it in 2007. Again, your irrational hysteria doesn't seem warranted.......And it isn't that the worker himself that has gotten more productive as much as it's that automation and other things have allowed him to be more productive. Give me the workers of 30-40 years ago any day.
Well, of course. When you are at the bottom, the only way is up and when you are at the top, the only way is down. But, we are not talking about individuals. We are talking about groups of individuals, the make up of which will change over time.
And most of them move up as they get older and become much better educated.
Crazy Graphs: Rich Vs Middle Class & Poor... a video that shows why Will is so very wrong. I mean, I'm sorry Will, but YOU'RE WRONG!
I can't believe that you made me watch that, wd (I saw him do a similar schpeel on MSNBC). He's cherry-picking! I've already conceded that the top 1% controlled 42.7% of the total financial wealth and 34.6% of the total wealth (he actually low-balled that one) in the country. But I also pointed out (and what he conveniently ignored) that those numbers in 1983 were 42.9% and 33.8%, respectively. ERGO, while, no, the rich didn't didn't necessarily get any poorer during the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush years, they didn't get all that significantly richer, either. Mr. Yunger also fails to point out that, while, yes, the top 1%'s percentage of the total AGI has gone up over the past 30 years, so, too, has their percentage of the total income tax burden. Like I pointed out before. The top 1%'s percentage of the AGI went up 11.7% from 1988 to 2009 but their percentage of the total income tax burden went up 33.2% - nearly 3 times the pace! AND, he doesn't point out that the people in this bottom quintile and/or earning the minimum wage aren't the same people from decade to decade. As I pointed out before (and according to the IRS's own data), 58% of the people who were in the lowest quntile in 1996 were out of it by 2005 (a large chunk of them moving up TWO quintiles).......It was a very slanted presentation, I guess is what I'm saying.
Oh, and one more thing. He fails to point out that the pie itself is constantly getting bigger. So, even if someone's % shrinks somewhat, it doesn't necessarily mean that a person or group is far worse off. A more sophisticated statistical instrument would be needed to determine that.
I do not consider the view to be "slanted" at all. It shows the growing inequality. And, as proven by the research in "The Spirit Level", inequality leads to more social problems. It's not relative if the pie got bigger because inequality still increased.
"The Spirit Level" proved nothing a) because it couldn't prove anything (social research itself has inherent limitations) and b) because it utilized atrocious methodology; the cherry-picking of indicators, the cherry-picking of countries, the failure to exclude outlier scores, etc........And it was a very slanted presentation. a) He only looked at income and not the tax burden. b) He didn't take into account social mobility. And c) he failed to show what the net worth figures were in the previous years (it was a "trust me, there were better in the past" type of presentation).......And I don't think that you understand the bigger pie hypothesis. Would you rather have 5% of 100 or 4% of 150? Do the math.
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