Economic inequality and the lack of a (real) progressive party in the United States

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Last Friday, Chris Rock was interviewed on Bill Maher's show Real Time, and the subject of health care reform came up.

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!”

(source)

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"

One half of Americans owns only 2.5 percent of the total wealth:

Half of America has 0.5% of the stocks and bonds:

Look at that gap grow!

The last two decades have been great, unless you're a typical American worker!

Real earnings have not increased (for the typical worker) for 50 years:

And with that, any real chance of upward economic mobility:

Republican tax cuts have significantly increased the wealth gap in the United States:

While the richest households' income taxes are getting lower and lower:

If you're not in the top 1 percent, you're getting a bum deal!

Source with citations on where the information was gathered is also listed. I want to thank wes_wilson for his post in another community about this information!

Comments

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

Oh jesus.

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.

[penguin42.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to be hostile or disingenuous. I'm honestly trying to reconcile all this information here.

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.

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

Yes, that would be nice. I'm pretty sure that I added a caveat that I couldn't find the data that I remember reading previously (which includes studies anywhere from a week ago to ten years ago), and that I might be incorrect.

The data provided here is pretty useless. It's all "Hate the rich rawrrawr" without actually giving us anything meaningful.