ext_39051 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
telemann.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
talkpolitics2010-04-12 06:46 pm
telemann.livejournal.com) wrote in talkpolitics2010-04-12 06:46 pm
Entry tags:
Economic inequality and the lack of a (real) progressive party in the United States
Last Friday, Chris Rock was interviewed on Bill Maher's show Real Time, and the subject of health care reform came up.
But health care isn't the only arena where inequality exists in the United States, and frankly what's puzzling is why the average person doesn't understand this or isn't angered about it. American workers are responsible for higher productivity over the last 30 years, and are some of the most productive in the world, but their salaries have been essentially stagnant. Why the indifference? Case in point, nearly two years since the near collapse of the United States economy in October 2008, there **still** hasn't been a single law written by Congress to prevent this from happening again, with some of the firms responsible STILL giving out bonuses. Of course, both political parties are responsible for what has happened: the large infusion of money and lobbyists into the legislative process has prevented any real concrete action to prevent it. Democrats became the 2nd Republican party in a rush to the right after Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, for a variety of issues (that's another post). Bill Maher has stated it essentially correct "Over the last thirty years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital." There really isn't a progressive party even with the Democrats, and Mr. Maher chastises the President and the party pretty harshly for that:
Here's some specific information in the form of charts on some of the worst cases of economic inequality in the United States. Be warned, it's very bandwidth intensive.
One half of Americans owns only 2.5 percent of the total wealth:
When Maher asked if he saw health care reform the prism of race and as a civil rights issue, Rock said no. He sees health reform as a “people rights issue.” Rock also recounted his family’s experience with the health care system – first when he was poor compared to when he was rich. “I had my father get sick when I was 22. And I was poor, alright. And my father had an ulcer, and it exploded and you know all these toxins get in your blood. And basically, my father died, whatever, 50 days after his ulcer. So I had a father get sick while I was poor,” the comedian recalled.
“My mother got sick when I was rich. And my mother, you know… I don’t really want to get into it, but my mother was sicker than my father. And my mother’s alive. My mother’s fine, OK? I remember going to the hospital to see my mother and wondering, ‘Was I in the right place?’ Like, this was a hotel, like it had a concierge, man. “… if the average person really knew the discrepancy in the health care system, there would be riots in the streets, OK? They would burn this motherf**ker down!”
But health care isn't the only arena where inequality exists in the United States, and frankly what's puzzling is why the average person doesn't understand this or isn't angered about it. American workers are responsible for higher productivity over the last 30 years, and are some of the most productive in the world, but their salaries have been essentially stagnant. Why the indifference? Case in point, nearly two years since the near collapse of the United States economy in October 2008, there **still** hasn't been a single law written by Congress to prevent this from happening again, with some of the firms responsible STILL giving out bonuses. Of course, both political parties are responsible for what has happened: the large infusion of money and lobbyists into the legislative process has prevented any real concrete action to prevent it. Democrats became the 2nd Republican party in a rush to the right after Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, for a variety of issues (that's another post). Bill Maher has stated it essentially correct "Over the last thirty years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital." There really isn't a progressive party even with the Democrats, and Mr. Maher chastises the President and the party pretty harshly for that:
Here's some specific information in the form of charts on some of the worst cases of economic inequality in the United States. Be warned, it's very bandwidth intensive.
The gap between the top 1% and everyone else hasn't been this bad since the "Roaring Twenties"
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
no subject
That said, a few mitigating factors:
Most households 40-50 years ago were single-income. It's much more common now for wives, even kids to work.
It used to be that you could get a job at an assembly line out of high school, work for 20-30 years at a good salary, and retire with a strong pension. That obviously isn't the case anymore; the U.S. economy relies on higher education and services now, but we're still going through growing pains on that front.
The cost of housing and food has generally decreased over the last 40-50 years. Health care and higher education, notably, have risen faster than inflation, but the point is just that cost of living has to be considered here.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
should have posted a picture of a homeless person
no subject
no subject
no subject
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2007/08/How-Poor-Are-Americas-Poor-Examining-the-Plague-of-Poverty-in-America
no subject
Where to begin, okay:
Rector is dissatisfied with how the Census bureau defines "poverty", so far so good, but he then "re-defines" it and calls it a "study" without giving any form of links and citations for the claims (there are other links and citations, but none to the ones where he babbles on about 6% are this and 47% are that, yadda yadda. According to any real study, you have notes directly linked or noted at the bottom of the page, to where the information comes from. (there is a link to sources at the bottom of the page, but only to books he's referring to or to charts he claims to base some statements on, more on that later)
In short, there are huge parts of this article which isn't based on any visible source at all, at large this covers the powerpoint sections of the article.
Further: I did some fact checking on what sources that were to be found from this article, with dismal results. When it comes to literature, most sources are right wing studies or books from the same kind of think tank origin as the authors are from. Most of the rest can not be proven as a source. All those charts from the Census bureau, you know what, I fucking went to the source and read them. They don't look the same as they do in your "report". For one, there is no "poor" quota, that has been created or manipulated by the authors. I actually went and read through The American Housing Survey, and their charts are not composed in the same way as the Heritage article at all. The charts were composed by the authors. The original survey don't even use the word "poor" as a category.
The one chart in regards to "Europe" is not either like the original, the chart is once again produced by the Heritage authors. Put aside entirely the enormous problem with how European countries are clumped together with non European countries and only a few European countries at that.
Also, there is no other study (with sources), in your article that speaks of European living standards at all.
Basically, what you're linking to is a long opinionated rant, or what could at best be described as an "article". And that would be generous.
Learn how research is done, and then do it. You're being had. And I'm pissed for wasting my time with a bunch of Right wing think Tank drivel.
no subject
no subject
They are often long and take a lot of work to fact check, and that's part of why few bother to do it. (99% of the think tank readers are already stale in their mindset and would never dream of fact checking, because they believe it before they start reading it)
And actually, it's a bad sign when an article doesn't have a direct link or reference to the charts or studies they claim as sources, but instead sport charts they have created out of other charts (why not just show the original charts?). In most to all cases, when you put in some work and look up books/quotations/surveys/original charts, the facts are manipulated to a point where lying would not be an exaggeration to use about the whole thing - this article for instance is a lie - if it claims to be research or "a study", if it claims to just be an opinionated article, it can pass as biased semi propaganda, which is fine, but NOT if it calls itself something else.
It usually takes someone who's done academic research to know how to fake it and make stuff look hard to look up and legitimate at the same time, like these kind of think tank writers, and it usually takes nothing less than another academic or someone used to read or produce research to reveal the fakes. Not that most libertarians/conservatives are interested in knowing the facts over their own fables.
no subject
funny thing they list all their sources at the very end.
(no subject)
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
caveat: I can't quite suss out that information from the BLS, I'm running off memory of stats I've once read and can't verify, and might be remembering them completely wrong. So I'm a long way from advocating any course of action. But my point is that while these statistics are shocking, they aren't the statistics that we should concern ourselves with when discussing the plight of the poor. Historical real wages of various quintiles should be at the forefront, but it's noticeably absent and annoyingly hard to find.
no subject
this is not hard information to find it's right here, on this page, or on scores (http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=real+wages+america) of others (http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig_03.html), what are you smoking and can I please have some
no subject
When I have discussions about policy, I try to actually suss out the facts. Not just cherry pick the ones that make the point I like that day. Yes, inequality has changed in America. It's hard to tell whether or not that legitimately means the poor have been hurt by that fact. Even your "it's so fucking obvious" stats show that to be the case.
no subject
no subject
You know what's hilarious about your tantrum is that I'm a liberal who believes in safety nets. I believe that poverty is a real issue and we should try to pursue policy that alleviates the symptoms and attempts to lift people out of poverty. That doesn't mean that I am going to sit back and cheer lead when liberals trot out impressive looking graphs that don't actually say anything.
The rich have nothing to do with the poor. We do not live in a mercantilist society. So while it is entirely likely that the poor have not increased their standard of living, the wealth held by the rich has NOTHING to do with that.
And you're little tirade about women's rights? It's cute. Really. But even if there is discrimination at the heart of their low wages in the 70's, any increase is good news for the economy. When women join the labor force, that almost doubles the income in a household. That phenomena exists in all quintiles. Also women are more likely to finish college than men. And in 1/5 of households, women are the breadwinners. The discrepancy in pay of the youngest generation is almost entirely attributable to gendered careers (hint: teachers aren't going to make more money even if they have wangs) and taking time off to have kids.
I'm sick to death of the idea that liberal ideas are so intellectually inferior they have to fall back on stupid classist tropes and hating on the rich and corporations. I mean, come on. If that's the best we have, we deserve our ass to be handed to us in the midterms.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
no subject
The graph posted here labeled "average hourly earnings" shows this not to be the case.
Though I understand these kinds of macroeconomic variables can be processed and cut up and presented in lots of different ways to imply different things. I'm just wondering where the data is that show wages going up?
Also, you mentioned income mobility in another post of yours. There is a graph showing income mobility, and it's true that it still exists, but it's trending downward. That's not a good sign.
no subject
Average wage earnings. Shocks in the lowest quintile are not going to effect average earnings very much, seeing as the difference between zero and poor isn't much. But shocks in the highest quintile are going to make a huge difference because one million dollars is very different from one billion dollars.
So average hourly earnings isn't a particularly useful statistic. Instead, ryder_p_moses dug up this useful graph (http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/tabfig/03/SWA06_Table3.4.jpg) showing that the lowest quintile of workers have not actually had their real wages decline.
And I can say with absolute certainty that in that period, federal transfers to the lowest quintile have increased with the inception and expansion of the EITC.
I have no qualms saying that we should always strive to provide for our poor. But right now we have flawed programs and a pretty bleak and unfortunate tax system that is so geared towards taxing the rich and corporate (while the feds might not tax corporations much, the states get most of their cash from their corporate constituents to keep everyone else happy), it's hard to game the system too much more to fix the gaping holes we have.
We're at a point where we need to start thinking smarter, rather than pointing at the rich as fat cats, thinking we can tax our way to solvency.
no subject
Average wage earnings. Shocks in the lowest quintile are not going to effect average earnings very much, seeing as the difference between zero and poor isn't much. But shocks in the highest quintile are going to make a huge difference because one million dollars is very different from one billion dollars.
Point taken about separating the data into finer groups, but since the highest earners pretty assuredly have been earning more, should the average of all earners be going up a lot more than the above graph showed?
Instead, ryder_p_moses dug up this useful graph showing that the lowest quintile of workers have not actually had their real wages decline.
I never said they declined. I said it the graph above seems to demonstrate that they haven't gone up. Looking at the breakdown by quintile it also looks like they haven't gone up, or at least there's no strong trend. Obviously there have been large ups and downs but they appear to almost cancel out. The chart above showing the gross average reports from 1964 to 2008 and also doesn't have any obvious trend to my eyes.
Again I'm just asking where the assertion "real wages have gone up" comes from. For what group? Over what interval? Is it a trend or a temporary rise? The counter assertion is not "wages have gone down" but rather "wages are stagnant."
And I can say with absolute certainty that in that period, federal transfers to the lowest quintile have increased with the inception and expansion of the EITC.
It would be nice to see a sort of "gross income" statistic that took into account unearned income such as grants, subsidies, pensions, interest, dividends, etc in addition to wages/salary.
no subject
The data provided here is pretty useless. It's all "Hate the rich rawrrawr" without actually giving us anything meaningful.