That’s good enough. It’s all under control./sarcasm
The middle class and poor just have to sit down & SHUT UP!
Move along people there is nothing to see here!
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I think he is saying that upward mobility in the U.S. is now in decline and you and Sowell are living in a reality that no longer exists:
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That’s a good question. I think the policies to address income inequality have actually made things worse. They have lit the fires of inflation that are hurting affordability.
I think the other thing that has happened is that a whole group of college graduates that took on debt and chose majors that are not valuable in a free market economy are facing some harsh realities. They see people without degrees and others with them doing better as our economy rewards utility of all else. In addition, some political movements are seeking to divide us by black and white, men and women, poor and rich. Social media has fed these narratives. In addition, these are the first generations growing up where how others live is within full view, or the best picture they want the public to see.
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Absolutely! People have access to more information today, and it’s harder for the uber-wealthy to gaslight us on taxation. The fluff you see on Instagram is a distraction.
Let the arithmetic set you free.
intercst
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I know what he is saying. The data he is using doesn’t really show that in my opinion. It says nothing about movement between classes only the absolute % that reside within them. As to productivity and other measures, if one thinks about it, capital should in fact outperform income. It’s the logical deployment of what is simply more and more stored labor.
Lastly, what do we intend to do about it that won’t simply continue to stoke inflation, the real thief. Seize all the wealth of Billionaires? Go for it, those that can leave Will and those that can’t, the total worth is $9 trillion and we face a debt of nearly $40 trillion. We’re running a 2 trillion annual deficit on top of all that and are already facing shortfalls in Medicare and social security. Wake up, we wrote everybody checks during Covid. How did that work out?
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I see, any actual data to support those Sowell quotes is kinda hard to find, I guess.
Whereas other contributors here have shown repeatedly in this thread and others actual data showing increases in income inequality and declining economic mobility.
Good one. The data literally shows a decline in upward mobility since people born in 1940.
There’s about 10 posts upthread showing data on increasing income equality and the counterargument is a quote from a political talking head.
Look here:
And here:
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Give it up mostlylong.
The study/data attacks his core belief that everything is hokey dory within the USA.
If he could have found data refuting what has been previously linked; he would have.
He cannot accept that the unrest in the population is caused by income inequality & lack of income mobility. Time to move on.
Chetty used a series of maps and charts to reveal the dramatic decline in upward mobility in the U.S. (especially for kids in low-income families), the factors that are the strongest determinants of economic mobility, and how these findings can be used to guide policy changes that can improve mobility.
he has shown that while more than 90% of children born in 1940 went on to earn more than their parents did — a cornerstone assumption of the American dream — children born in the middle of the 1980s only have a 50-50 chance of doing better than their parents.
What lies behind this trend.
IMO. It is 1)the high cost of credentialization [university education].
The lower economic strata kid can obtain it. But acquires a large debt to obtain it. So that person will require a significant period of time discharging that debt and building wealth. Many lower strata kids view the barrier as a too high cost & time to obtain the credentials.
In the 1960’s & perhaps the 1970’s a kid could earn enough money during the summer to mostly pay for college. I did. That is no longer possible.
2)the working class no longer have an establishment political party representing them & their economic interest. Both parties now represent the professional class.
Thomas Frank wrote about the transition of the Democratic Party in his 2016 book titled " Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?"
the Democratic Party has represented the interests of the upper middle class, specifically professionals with high educational attainment.
the share of working-class voters who identify as Democrats has been declining for half a century: A majority did so in 1958, but not since.
Working-class voters have not become Republicans. Only in 2020 and 2024 – the first time in the survey’s history – did more working-class voters identify as Republican than Democrat, and even then by narrow margins.
The data shows a politically homeless working class: estranged from the Democrats, not captured by the Republicans, stuck in the middle with diminishing attachment to either party.
What drove them out?
A segment of the progressive left has a ready answer: Democrats abandoned working-class voters economically – on trade, wages and industrial policy. Working-class voters responded rationally. Fix the economics and the coalition comes back.
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Again, I’ll try to make this as simple for you as possible. Income inequality is just phrasing for a difference in incomes. The differential has no bearing on moving from poor to middle class to upper class. It isn’t a winner take all system where someone has to lose for someone to win.
But, let’s entertain for a moment that it was somehow valuable to address it. How would you go about doing so and what would be the outcome? Would it even address mobility?
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Everything is not okay in the US. There are serious issues and chief among them is the quality of public education that is in fact making it more difficult for those in poorer areas to succeed and a mounting debt crisis. However, it has almost nothing to do with income inequality or wages vs capital.
what’s interesting to me is the number of people here touting their own financial success and at the same time claiming it’s a growing exception rather than the rule.
Lastly, if the US is becoming such a failure in terms of the ability to succeed, where in the world should we look to as the model of success? Which other major economic power isn’t now struggling under the weight of the welfare programs implemented to address this problem in the first place. The larger problem is this unrest carries with it ideas to abolish the border, abolish the police and reform our govt to eliminate the senate. I have no interest in such nonsense.
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Norway. Look at the history of their sovereign wealth fund.
Stop waging forever wars.
Bring back effective estate/inheritance taxes and get rid of the stepped up cost basis rule for estates over some number of millions.
Add another bend point to Social Security and raise the contribution cap.
Prioritize infrastructure enabling us to rebuild schools, infrastructure that bring back potential upward mobility.
Look at the facts and think. Stop letting scary right wing sound bites define our reality.
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What?
You keep repeating this with zero evidence.
Are you in a different reality?
There are several posts showing data on reduced income mobility over the years.
The data are summarized here:
You acknowledge that the populace is all twisted up and unhappy, but it’s just because they see rich people on social media?
Seriously?
This is not hard. It’s all around us.
We don’t even need to dig out the data on studies and polls.
It’s everywhere - if you choose to see it.
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Relax. That all ends once AI is up and running and tied into the national surveillance state. Just build a few more detention sites to house those with improper ideas.
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Yeah Norway, that will work. Let’s nationalize our entire oil production.
I’m not scared. I’m asking some pretty basic questions. All I seem to get back is we need to emulate a tiny little country in Europe.
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Panic a little more.
F45 knows the facts.
That’s why F45 proposed we move on to suggesting solutions.
That way we move the discussion to the world of future hypotheticals and out of the reality of factual history.
In the future hypothetical world, we can more easily claim it’s unknown what might work, if anything. And nothing will work.
What happens next is
- we propose solutions
- F45 shoots them all down
- F45 proposes zero solutions
(but in another thread I did extract some consensus on solutions and that consensus included universal healthcare - maybe that reality hits closer to home)
See, I just predicted the future:
Norway’s biggest source of income is the oil and gas industry, which accounts for roughly 22% to 25% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and a vast share of its export value.
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Yes, we disagree those solutions have proven to be effective or that they even meaningfully impact income inequality.
The ignore feature is very valuable.
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How equitable should everybody be? Just curious what some of you think is fair.
I typed in “how much wealth in US if everyybody was equal?”. This is the answer. These are results for how much wealth in US if everyone was equal.
Search instead for how much wealth in US if everbody was equal?
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U.S. Wealth If Shared Equally
If the total wealth of U.S. households — about $160.35 trillion — were divided equally among all 340.11 million Americans, each person would receive roughly $471,465 GOBankingRates+1. That’s $942,930 for a couple and $1.89 million for a family of four GOBankingRates.
How the math works
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Total U.S. household wealth: $160.35 trillion (assets minus liabilities) GOBankingRates
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Population: ~340.11 million people GOBankingRates
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Per-person share: $160.35 trillion ÷ 340.11 million ≈ $471,465
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There was more but I didn’t want to post it all. It discussed the repercussions to the economy if something like this happened.
I’ll also note that the equal amount listed is less than what I believe most of us here currently are worth.
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First, before considering a change to the status quo, consider the very premise:
- income inequality has been rising in the US for decades
Do you recognize that the data indicates that the premise is true and factual (as a broad average, many data caveats will certainly apply)?
If yes, do you believe in considering a policy remedy to the premise?
If no to the first question, why are we discussing this further, the premise is not factual?
If no to the second question, why are we discussing this further, the premise exists but it does not warrant considering a policy response?
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