Capital in the Twenty-First Century

[CountDeMoney]

Policies that could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent of income earners could include:

    Improved education and access to skills, which may require major changes in the system of education finance and admission
    Reforms of labor market institutions to boost workers' bargaining power and including a higher minimum wage
    Corporate governance reforms and worker co-determination of the distribution of profits
    Steeply progressive taxation that affects the determination of pay and salaries and the pre-tax distribution of income, particularly at the top end

You know what else could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent?  Simply paying people more.

[Valmy]

Fight for fifteen?

[Monoriu]

Really, the only solution is to make sure that you aren't in the bottom 50%. 

[Valmy]

Really, the only solution is to make sure that you aren't in the bottom 50%. 

Yeah but that just means you are not totally fucked. It is still kind of dicey until you get up into the top 10% or so.

Speaking of getting fucked I kind of got screwed when I sold my old house so I am working nights now to pay off 20K in foundation repairs I had to cough up. I first got a job delivering pizza and part of the freaking job application was applying for government benefits. I was like 'awesome we have all these people working full time and we STILL have to support them with our tax money.'

I actually rather enjoyed delivering pizza, about as brainless of a job you can find now that GPS on your phone exists, but my wife didn't like me working on Friday and Saturday nights so now I am working security at a church. All those evening 12 step people need to be kept from looting the place I guess.

[Ed Anger]

Ow. Foundation repairs.

[LaCroix]

I wonder how the graphs would look if the groups that seem to wallow their whole lives in poverty stricken cesspools were omitted (white trash, etc.)

[Tonitrus]

Policies that could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent of income earners could include:

    Improved education and access to skills, which may require major changes in the system of education finance and admission
    Reforms of labor market institutions to boost workers' bargaining power and including a higher minimum wage
    Corporate governance reforms and worker co-determination of the distribution of profits
    Steeply progressive taxation that affects the determination of pay and salaries and the pre-tax distribution of income, particularly at the top end

You know what else could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent?  Simply paying people more.

We'd still have a bottom 50% though. 

[Jacob]

I wonder how the graphs would look if the groups that seem to wallow their whole lives in poverty stricken cesspools were omitted (white trash, etc.)

Why would you omit them?

[Jacob]

We'd still have a bottom 50% though. 

Of course we would,  that's basic math.  The issue is the condition of the bottom 50%,  not that half the people will be below the middle point.

[Eddie Teach]

Why would you omit them?

He hates the people he went to high school with.

[Jacob]

Why would you omit them?

He hates the people he went to high school with.

Sure.  But if the stats and discussion are about how people are not seeing any improvement in their economic outlook it seems kind of silly to say "how do the stats look if we ignore the people not seeing improvement in their economic outlook?"

[Berkut]

To understand how unequal the United States is today, consider the following fact. In 1980, adults in the top 1 percent earned on average 27 times more than bottom 50 percent of adults. Today they earn 81 times more. This ratio of 1 to 81 is similar to the gap between the average income in the United States and the average income in the world's poorest countries, among them the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Burundi. Another alarming trend evident in this data is that the increase in income concentration at the top in the United States over the past 15 years is due to a boom in capital income. It looks like the working rich who drove the upsurge in income concentration in the 1980s and 1990s are either retiring to live off their capital income or passing their fortunes onto heirs.

I wonder how they managed to get this so wrong. I have it on excellent authority that the wealthy create jobs, they don't retire and live in luxury and make their kids rich.

[Tamas]

Policies that could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent of income earners could include:

    Improved education and access to skills, which may require major changes in the system of education finance and admission
    Reforms of labor market institutions to boost workers' bargaining power and including a higher minimum wage
    Corporate governance reforms and worker co-determination of the distribution of profits
    Steeply progressive taxation that affects the determination of pay and salaries and the pre-tax distribution of income, particularly at the top end

You know what else could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent?  Simply paying people more.

Pffft. If everyone on the bottom starts earning more, they will still be in the bottom.

It's like this thing I saw on Facebook - that nowhere in the States can you afford a 2 bed apartment from minimum wage, hinting that raising minimum wages would solve this.

Well it wouldn't. I am assuming there are no masses of empty big apartments held empty because people can't afford the stone-written fixed rent price. So if all poor people start earning more, that will be great for owners of two bedroom apartments as people competing for their property will have more money to offer so it's their family who can live in humane conditions instead of an other poor schmuck's. For this particular problem the solution would be increasing supply, not demand.

[Berkut]

Policies that could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent of income earners could include:

    Improved education and access to skills, which may require major changes in the system of education finance and admission
    Reforms of labor market institutions to boost workers' bargaining power and including a higher minimum wage
    Corporate governance reforms and worker co-determination of the distribution of profits
    Steeply progressive taxation that affects the determination of pay and salaries and the pre-tax distribution of income, particularly at the top end

You know what else could raise the pre-tax incomes of the bottom 50 percent?  Simply paying people more.

Pffft. If everyone on the bottom starts earning more, they will still be in the bottom.

Is anyone even reading what people post or what these articles are saying?

It isn't some brilliant revelation that by the definition of what a percentage means, there will always be a "lowest 50%".

What is the purpose behind stating things that are definitionally true, and have absolutely NOTHING to do with the discussion?

[Tamas]

The original article is from 2014 Ffs. I just reacted to CdM's argument for a higher minimum wage. Chillax and go to sleep :p