Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Stacking the Decades
The left has been playing games with income inequality FOR DECADES. a) The income that they talk about is always of the pre-tax variety. The wealthy pay the bulk of federal and state income tax (the top 10% of earners, for example, pay 70.5% of all Federal income taxes) and local property tax. The actual disposable income is obviously considerably less. b) The income at the bottom rung is almost always calculated absent the plethora of transfer payments that the poor in this country frequently receive. When you factor in the value of the food stamps, the housing and energy assistance, the earned income tax credit, etc., the disparity once again is lessened. c) The left almost always cites statistics relative to household income. This is highly deceptive in that the number of workers per household in the upper quintile is roughly 4 times the number of that which exists for the lowest quintile (an average of 2 earners per family in the upper quintile and .5 in the lowest quintile). Obviously they're going to have a SIGNIFICANTLY higher household income. d) The majority of households in the bottom quintile of earners DO NOT have even one full-time year-round worker. These households are comprised predominantly of single mothers on welfare, Social Security recipients (retirees or those on disability), and people who work part-time and/or sporadically (as I pointed out in a previous thread, 97.5% of people who work full-time/ year-round are NOT below the poverty level). e) The left rarely, if ever, brings up the concept of social mobility. According the IRS's very own numbers, more than half of the people in the top 1% in 1996 WEREN'T there within a decade. Add to that the fact that 58% of the people in the bottom quintile in 1996 had moved out of their situation by 2006 and it really does underscore the reality that America is in fact an opportunity society....................................................................................................Look, I'm not saying here that being poor is any sort of cakewalk. It obviously isn't. And nobody who I know (even my most conservative colleagues) is even remotely saying that we should do away with the social safety net. But the level of the hand-wringing from the progressive left has really reached a tipping-point, in my opinion.You work, you make money. You work hard (and, yes, staying in school is helpful, too), you make more money. You sit behind a keyboard and bitch.......
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9 comments:
Your are one bright guy. Thanks for putting yourself our there.
Thanks for stopping by, KP. I appreciate it. And, no, not everybody agrees with your assessment.
Not everyone agrees with KP's assessment because it's wrong. Will's claim that the left rarely, if ever, brings up the concept of social mobility is completely false, as his simplistic assessment of what people need to do to get ahead (work, make money and work harder, make more money).
A 2006 Center for American Progress report titled, "Understanding Mobility in America" says, "households whose adult members all worked more than 40 hours per week for two years in a row were more upwardly mobile in 1990-91 and 1997-98 than households who worked fewer hours. Yet this was not true in 2003-04, suggesting that people who work long hours on a consistent basis no longer appear to be able to generate much upward mobility for their families".
What Will's post is representative of, IMO, is Conservative hand-wringing concerning attacks on the wealthy elites people like him ignorantly deify. They're worried the concerns of the 99 percent might actually gain some traction and the political power of the plutocrats might suffer a little. Will finds this possibility unacceptable.
This explains why he sits behind his keyboard and bitches about how those on the Left who believe we should be working to decrease inequality are "lazy" and "jealous".
The facts are the facts, wd. According to the IRS's own data, 58% of the people in the bottom quintile in 1996 were out of it by 2005 AND more than 50% of the people in the top 1% were out of that category, too, by 2005.......And I don't deify anybody, Clyde. That is a bald-faced lie from a simple-minded person.
And 97.5% of the people who work year-round and full-time are above the poverty line, wd. That's another fact.
No lie. Your blog proves it to be true.
Name one misrepresentation in this post. All of these facts are from the IRS and the U.S. Census. More than half of the 1% in 1996 was out of it by 2005. This whole "the rich are getting richer" talking point is bull/a half-truth AT BEST. Yes, the top 1% has improved their standing over the past 3 decades or so but THEY ARE NOT THE SAME FRIGGING PEOPLE. Duh!
Will: This whole "the rich are getting richer" talking point is bull/a half-truth AT BEST.
It's absolutely the truth, and it's ruining our country/turning it into a plutocracy. If things continue going this way for much longer our democracy will be lost.
And I'm not disputing your facts, I'm disputing your conclusions. The middle class and poor are thrown a few crumbs and you think they should be bowing down and worshiping the wealthy just like you.
If not for the "cakewalk" line I'd have guessed you were suggesting the poor were lucky duckies due to the crumbs the wealthy allow them to have (the "transfer payments" you refer to).
Big frigging deal. They wouldn't need these things if they were paid a fair wage. And you support policies that will drive down worker's wages further (free trade). Will Hart is part of the problem, IMO.
As a category, yes, the rich are getting richer. But if you look at actual flesh and blood human beings, the people who were in the top 1% in 1996 - their income actually WENT DOWN! It went down because more than half of them were out of the top 1% by 2005. Do you simply not see the distinction here?......And transfer payments aren't crumbs. They add up to tens of billions of dollars a year and should in fact be included in calculating a person's income.......And for the umteenth time, I don't worship any people. That's your thing, wd. Yes, I respect people who accomplish something with their lives but to me it usually has more to do with artistic and academic achievements than it does financial gain (though, yes, I truly admire cutting-edge business innovators like Steve Jobs, too).
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