• silverwhisper said on Oct 01, 2007....

  i'm curious what the dip in 2002 is.
  
  ed

• bloc said on Oct 01, 2007....

  i have no idea. Maybe general volatility?

• lioneljay said on Oct 01, 2007....

  Ed, the dip that you see for 2002 represents only a 1% change from the previous year. The graph is a little hard to interpret because the range is actually fairly narrow. My guess as to the explanation for that change in 2002 is that the impact of the September 11 attacks included a retrenchment in several industries. This would have limited big bonus payouts to CEOs and others at the top, thus moving their incomes downward enough to change the percentage line on the graph that Krugman cites in the blog that is linked here.
  
  I found this comment from a blog reader to be most intriguing:
  
  
  "Bill McKibbin at a recent lecture in Vermont asserted that the most important election in the past 50 years was Carter vs. Reagan. He believess that in that election America was given a choice between community and individualism. The “hyper-individualism” that evolved following that election led not only to the economic disparity you describe so well in your columns, but to the wasteful use of energy as “rugged individuals” bought ever bigger cars and ever biggger houses that werre further and further from the places they worked…. Both political parties implicitly endorse this consumerism that results from hyper-individualism by feeding the idea that if inequality was eliminated everyone would be able to afford Hummers and McMansions instead of urging us consume less. I don’t hear any Democrats getting the notion of sacrifice into the political conversation— be it by raising taxes on the rich or taxing gasoline like they do in the rest of the world— because they’ve been cowed into submission."
  
  
  Note: emphasis added.
  

• bloc said on Oct 01, 2007....

  @lj
  great point, one nitpick though.
  
  "I don’t hear any Democrats getting the notion of sacrifice into the political conversation— be it by raising taxes on the rich or ..."
  
  A few of them have advocated raising taxes on the rich. Hillary specifically mentions it as one of the ways she'll pay for her healthcare plan.
  

• lioneljay said on Oct 01, 2007....

  Bloc, you're quite right. I suspect that the speaker may have been thinking that no one is asking for anything more than token changes, but that's a matter of interpretation.

• bloc said on Oct 01, 2007....

  yeah, I agree with the general sentiment. 

• cotteralladams3 said on Oct 02, 2007....

  People confuse equality of opportunity with equality of results.  Socialized economic equality through economic redistribution destroys incentive in the marketplace.  Why do we assume that what working-class people need are welfare cheques instead of opportunity, that they lack the desire to become successful or that they must engage in menial labour?  It is amazing to me, this kind of politically correct thinking, that demands that people act a certain way because of race, class and income.  As if someone, being of a certain background, must be poor, a victim of discrimination, engaged in menial labour, etc.

  Look around you at the success of various immigrant groups--Pakistani, East Indian, Filipino, Jewish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and others.  I have worked for many of these ethnic groups and while they are vastly different, they all have incredible work ethics, positive attitudes, hunger, ambition, time, youth and value education and literacy.  The two biggest determining factors in success are education and literacy, not race or background.  Since there are successful people out of the ghettoes, some single mothers with children, it is just supportive of politically correct forms of racism to suggest that minorities cannot achieve success without support from the left and the government.  This doesn't mean I am against some kind of affirmative action, but we have that, and still, some members of minority groups get left behind.
  
  Another bone of contention: in every group there are successes and failures..the notion that some African-Americans get left behind doesn't mean that all do or that it is a general problem.  It could be personal, about the community or other factors that go unnoticed.  Poverty has always existed,   An artificial demand for absolute social equality based on economic redistribution, the welfare state and absolute equality of results is erroneous and discriminatory against others.  Recently some teachers failed a test to gain entry into various positions supported by the school board.  Most of them had a good education, were literate and clearly had a good grasp on English.  Are we going to have to go through the politically-correct rhetoric that the tests are biassed whe the people writing are the ones failing and not the test?  If I fail a math test, why would I blame the test?  Why not myself for my individual performance?  A pattern is a collection of individual actions that may differ from one to the other in terms of effect, motivation and underlying causes.  If we all live in North America, how can the tests be biassed?  How do you account for the ones who succeed but come from the same culture, background, community and ethnicity?  This is not about racism or economic inequality.  It is about other factors: personal incentive, education, etc.

• bloc said on Oct 02, 2007....

  who are you contending with? I didn't claim, nor do I believe, many of the things you are critiquing.
  
  I don't believe for a second that the chart above corresponds to changes in worth ethics or education. @cotter, what do you believe caused the drop and sudden rise in the chart above?
  

• cotteralladams3 said on Oct 02, 2007....

  There are natural fluctuations in the marketplace that reflect suppy and demand.  One must look at the data without interpreting it according to beliefs about SES and poverty first.  A disparity in income is not necessarily indicative of structurally-based poverty.  What the rich buy and don't buy will not change factors for the worker.  Low wages, lack of benefits, hours, job availability, etc. are determined by employers, not by a rich guy in a Jaguar with a personal driver.  That some people are incredibly wealthy doesn't impose anything on me.  It doesn't deprive me of anything.  That taxes are too high, that we charge taxes on gas, books, tuition, clothes, art supplies, etc.  doesn't seem to get mentioned, along with inheritance taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, income tax, etc.  This is what is eating up a lot of middle income and it kills the worker. 

   

  Excessive taxation is an economic burden and it is troubling when one watches people get denied EI benefits they pay for, work for and are entitled to while a single mother leaves her husband who makes good money, doesn't go to work and demand alimony and child support from him and pops out more babies for four years on welfare while doing nothing, not working, going to counseling and getting an education.  Let me tell you, no worker that I know wishes to have his or her taxes pay for that.  I am not against single parenthood, but why should I have to pay for it?  I am not the publicly-funded father of these kids--make him pay, not the system.  I have heard SOCIAL WORKERS complain about it while drug addicts, the mentally ill, the institutionalized, street people, the elderly, kids and people with functional illiteracy cannot get help for housing, income and other resources.  So on poverty, it can be an injustice or a choice.  Some people do not want to work and create situations to avoid working. 

  Let us not doubt this for a second.  I have more sympathy for a woman who works and need subsidized daycare and alimony and child support than for a baby factory on welfare for five years with four kids from different fathers.  So charts do not exactly explain poverty and income disparity.  SES is a constructed system that assumes race and class hold people back and doesn't explain business policy, social welfare policy or the state of society. Individual achievement and failure are not taken into account.  The state of the wealthy is an inaccurate way of looking at the worker.  So is the natual fluctuation of the market and the history of recesssions.

• bloc said on Oct 02, 2007....

  "One must look at the data without interpreting it according to [their preconceived ] beliefs"
  
  I thinking you don't take your own advice. Your rant about single mothers is a very loosely related tangent that is a distraction to the core issue here. Did you click through my link and read the article about the graph?
  

• cotteralladams3 said on Oct 02, 2007....

  I am criticizing your interpretation of the data, not making any intepretation of my own.  That is a separate concern that offers insight into the issue of poverty that must be discussed and not simply confirmed by statistics since there is always a story behind each person.  My concerns about single mothers on welfare is not about the chart.  I was trying in my first paragraph to demonstrate that you interpret data according to a bias when data is not always objective if based on a bias in study or interpreted according to bias.  That is why I mentioned my views in a different scope--one of personal experience and insight and do not insist that my personal views are an interpretation of the chart.  It is shortsighted to suggest that my conclusion is based on the chart when I am not offering an intepretation of the chart.  It takes more than a chart to understand poverty.

• bloc said on Oct 02, 2007....

  but you aren't criticizing my interpretation. maybe 1% of all the text you wrote related to anything I said.
  
  Also, we aren't talking about poverty, we're talking about inequality. They are two different but related things.
  

• bloc said on Oct 02, 2007....

  let me clarify. This chart is about teh middle class shrinking and expanding. It's not about poverty. What is happening right now in america is that the middle class is shrinking. People are finding themselves near the top of the scale or near the bottom with fewer people in the middle. 

• cotteralladams3 said on Oct 02, 2007....

  You want social equality whether or not someone earned it?  Why? For the middle class?  I think it's sad the middle class is shrinking but that could be changed by tax cuts and a real estate market crash, which I am hoping for (though I'd hate to be selling).  What is good for someone is always bad for someone else but that's how it goes.  It's more an individual thing than one group against another.  Economic equality is a socialist precept that preassumes that people deserve economic equality when they don't.  If that offends some people, so be it.  I am all for a higher minimum wage, rent control, a public housing program and tax cuts.  I am all for covering the health care insurance premium for those below the low income cut-off.  I am against handouts to people who don't want to work.  Why?  Why should my tax dollars pay for welfare, a national daycare system and other income supplements for people who take advantage of the system and/or don't need it.  I'll agree with some sort of public education system, a daycare subsidy for families below the poverty line and some sort of health care system.  It's degrading to workers that some people who are perfectly capable of working and going to school at the same time should claim they don't have to and should collect government goodies instead.  This is not against the homeless, a completely different group of people.

  Taxes and the cost of housing prevent people from moving up the ladder.  Like I mentioned before, it can be personal problem or condition such as functional illiteracy, ADHD, lack of education, lack of capital, a criminal record and other factors including health, addiction and disability.  Being a single mother doesn't limit someone, that's my point.  If lots of single mothers are successful, then the others can be too.  They don't need welfare.  Only underaged girls who are not twenty-one need it because it is different for them.  To act like a woman over twenty-one can get away with making bad decisions (including the father) is erroneous, and in my mind, a vicious cycle that leads to viewing oneself as a victim for one's choices, a bad idea.  It doesn't encourage people to honestly--shut up and go out and deal with it. 

  I mention this because I have worked and gone to college while paying for it myself and used the bus instead of having a car, lived in basic surroundings, etc.  I have cleaned houses, worked in restaurants, been a cashier, cooked, washed dishes babysat, delivered newspapers, worked on an assembly line for a newspaper, done telemarketing, serving, banquets and a host of other jobs most people would not consider and most of these jobs were underpaid and had long hours or else, we had to be available all the time.  I studied accounting, English Literature and social work.  A server makes more money in this town than an accountant, go figure.  When you get out, they want two years of experience and only offer part-time but you must be available all the time.  I work as a supervisor at a fundraising outlet at night.  After six weeks in a successful economy with business owners crying out for workers, I finally found a job (always part-time, minimum wage, demanding experience and special skills, must be available all the time, must quit other job) that allows me to keep my night job when my boss could give me more hours, (I am presently the best salesperson there) but chooses not to so I had to get another job but they got mad that I had a job, including but not limited to, one guy who wanted me to quit to work for him 'full-time' for 25 hr a week and quit my other job from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. so that I could work from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and he got mad when I wouldn't do this.  Full time is forty hours.  The government and business leaders are the problem.  In this economy, I shouldn't have to put out 100 resumes and get maybe seven callbacks, not even interviews, and out of seven interviews, noone showed up.  People promised to call and didn't.  They need staff but don't show up to interviews.  This is why I went back to serving.  This restaurant needs someone for lunches and weekends and I make more money than being a cashier or cleaner somewhere.

• lioneljay said on Oct 02, 2007....

  You lost me, cotteralladams3. The original post was about the inequality between the very rich and the middle class. The two primary forces behind this inequality are downward pressure on real wages and seemingly unlimited expansion of rewards for the very few at the very highest rungs of the economy here in the U.S. Both of these forces are the result of practices, mostly now legitimized by tax law, that were initiated by the "captains of industry" during the Nixon and Reagan presidencies.
  
  This discussion has nothing to do with welfare whatsoever.
  

• bloc said on Oct 02, 2007....

  I'm with lj.
  the problem cotter is that hard working middle class people are getting less of the pie than they used to. They aren't working less hard! Hell, unemployment numbers are very low. You seem to be totally missing the point. I have no idea what your trying to say in your last paragraph.
  
  The fact that some people are lazy does nothing to explain the chart above.
  

• desertsienna2 said on Oct 02, 2007....

  I don't think Adams was claiming that the middle class didn't work hard but one cannot judge poverty on the state of the middle class for one simple reason: the middle class isn't poor.  He means that the root causes of poverty are not what many think--mainly class divisions, structural inequality and discrimination.  Economic equality is the goal of fascist societies, after all, communism was based on economic equality.  I am against a class system but we don't have one, unlike France, the U.K. and other European countries.

• desertsienna2 said on Oct 02, 2007....

  I don't think Adams was claiming that the middle class didn't work hard but one cannot judge poverty on the state of the middle class for one simple reason: the middle class isn't poor.  He means that the root causes of poverty are not what many think--mainly class divisions, structural inequality and discrimination.  Economic equality is the goal of fascist societies, after all, communism was based on economic equality.  I am against a class system but we don't have one, unlike France, the U.K. and other European countries.

• bloc said on Oct 03, 2007....

  this post is about the disintegration of the middle class and the growth of stratification in america. It's not about poverty in any direct way.
  

• D6fer said on Oct 03, 2007....

  Wow! sorry I missed this one!
  
  Only The Rich Pay Taxes
  Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.03% of Income Taxes
  October 10, 2003
  
  There is new data for 2001. The share of total income taxes paid by the top 1% fell to 33.89% from 37.42% in 2000. This is mainly because their income share (not just wages) fell from 20.81% to 17.53%. However, their average tax rate actually rose slightly from 27.45% to 27.50%.
  
  

• bloc said on Oct 04, 2007....

  that's a dumb headline. Are the top 50% of americans rich? 

• D6fer said on Oct 04, 2007....

  apparently. 

• bloc said on Oct 05, 2007....

  LOL, you should turn a critical eye to things before you repeat them ;) The vast majority of the top 50% would be shocked to learn that you think they are rich. 

• D6fer said on Oct 06, 2007....

  I bet the bottom 50 would agree with me ;)

• bloc said on Oct 06, 2007....

  that's almost as dumb as the headline. What do you think is the income cut off to get into the top 50%?

• D6fer said on Oct 06, 2007....

  Washington and California are neck and neck at 53,000 apx......Mississippi comes in on the bottom at around 35,000 and New Jersey is the top at around 64,000......the point is that 96% of income taxes are paid by people who make more than those amounts......I find it ironic that dems are always looking for new ways to tax people....sin tax even expanded to soft drinks.....taxing the poor......gas taxes....who do these taxes hurt the most?

• D6fer said on Oct 06, 2007....

  you might be surprised on some of my economic views bloc......here is my latest post
  
  The Dollar
  

• bloc said on Oct 07, 2007....

  you blame dems yet republicans drastically increased spending more than dems ever did. And they did it with debt with will have to be paid back with interest. Get some integrity already!
  
  Notice that you are trying to distance yourself from your idiotic claim that the top 50% are rich.
  

• D6fer said on Oct 07, 2007....

  hey...Im not disagreeing with that....I am more than disgusted with the reckless spending that is occurring.....What really pisses me off is that GWB had a perfect opportunity to really sew things up for the republican party.....he had the white house, the house, and the senate....to put the nation in the hole like this is ridiculous.....I bet that is how many dems felt when clinton screwed things up with lewinski....he would have had a pretty good thing going (maybe) until that .
  
  I'm not saying that the top 50% are rich...that was a cut and paste headline....although the ones below that may argue that they are...I did say that.....but the fact remains that it is the top 50% of wage earners that pay 96% of the income taxes.
  

• bloc said on Oct 08, 2007....

  sorry, you are right. I meant to say the idiotic claim of the headline. You should be careful in what you copy and paste :)

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