How to Tax Our Way Back to Justice

[ZiprHead]

A $1,000 per month cash handout would grow the economy by $2.5 trillion, new study says

Giving every adult in the United States a $1,000 cash handout per month would grow the economy by $2.5 trillion by 2025, according to a new study on universal basic income.

The report was released in August by the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute. Roosevelt research director Marshall Steinbaum, Michalis Nikiforos at Bard College’s Levy Institute, and Gennaro Zezza at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio in Italy co-authored the study.

The study made economic forecasts for three proposals: a full universal basic income in which every adult gets $1,000 a month ($12,000 a year), a partial basic income in which every adult gets $500 a month ($6,000 a year), and a child allowance in which parents get $250 a month ($3,000 a year).

The larger the universal basic income, the greater the benefit to the economy, according to the report.

 

[Worldtraveller]

A $1,000 per month cash handout would grow the economy by $2.5 trillion, new study says

Giving every adult in the United States a $1,000 cash handout per month would grow the economy by $2.5 trillion by 2025, according to a new study on universal basic income.

The report was released in August by the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute. Roosevelt research director Marshall Steinbaum, Michalis Nikiforos at Bard College’s Levy Institute, and Gennaro Zezza at the University of Cassino and Southern Lazio in Italy co-authored the study.

The study made economic forecasts for three proposals: a full universal basic income in which every adult gets $1,000 a month ($12,000 a year), a partial basic income in which every adult gets $500 a month ($6,000 a year), and a child allowance in which parents get $250 a month ($3,000 a year).

The larger the universal basic income, the greater the benefit to the economy, according to the report.

Yeah. The people who really need it will simply spend it and put it right back into circulation. Economics show that for every dollar spent, the return is greater than 1.0. Not putting any limitations on it makes it simple and minimizes any bureaucratic overhead, which keeps the rich fucks from figuring a way to give themselves more while screwing poor people (at least for this).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

''The middle classes have been squeezed ... Middle class wealth has grown...”

Those sentences really don't go together.

You cut the rest of the sentence; “Middle class wealth has grown at a slower pace than wealth at the top end.'' - which of course means that the ratio is widening.

Not only that, in some cases middle class incomes have not kept up with costs;


''Let’s just discuss the issues of wages: they are not keeping up with inflation. Consider the data below. While the GDP has risen (after inflation), real incomes have barely budged.''

Wage growth of the top 1%

The ability of those at the very top to claim an ever-larger share of overall wages is evident in this figure. Two things stand out. First is the extraordinarily rapid growth of annual wages for the top 1 percent compared with everybody else: Top 1 percent wages grew 138 percent, while wages of the bottom 90 percent grew just 15 percent. If the wages of the bottom 90 percent had grown at the average pace over this period—meaning that wages grew equally across-the-board—then the bottom 90 percent’s wages would have grown by 32 percent, more than double the actual growth.

Trotting out this lying graph again and again doesn't make it truth.

That's actually hourly wages of goods producing workers. These days almost all good jobs are service jobs.

 

[DBT]

Trotting out this lying graph again and again doesn't make it truth.

That's actually hourly wages of goods producing workers. These days almost all good jobs are service jobs.

As the website cites the source of the graph as being: EPI analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis data it's reasonable to assume that they are not lying.

Let's say that the graph is not entirely accurate. It doesn't matter because we have multiple sources that tell us that your average worker has been dissatisfied with their pay rate increases - mostly stagnant in relation to increasing costs, housing, etc - for years.....years in which the upper layers of society have enjoyed gains in income, adjusted for inflation....thank you very much, laughing all the way to the bank.

''On the face of it, these should be heady times for American workers. U.S. unemployment is as low as it’s been in nearly two decades (3.9% as of July) and the nation’s private-sector employers have been adding jobs for 101 straight months – 19.5 million since the Great Recession-related cuts finally abated in early 2010, and 1.5 million just since the beginning of the year.

But despite the strong labor market, wage growth has lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.''

 

[Canard DuJour]

You cut the rest of the sentence; “Middle class wealth has grown at a slower pace than wealth at the top end.'' - which of course means that the ratio is widening.

Not only that, in some cases middle class incomes have not kept up with costs;


''Let’s just discuss the issues of wages: they are not keeping up with inflation. Consider the data below. While the GDP has risen (after inflation), real incomes have barely budged.''

Wage growth of the top 1%

The ability of those at the very top to claim an ever-larger share of overall wages is evident in this figure. Two things stand out. First is the extraordinarily rapid growth of annual wages for the top 1 percent compared with everybody else: Top 1 percent wages grew 138 percent, while wages of the bottom 90 percent grew just 15 percent. If the wages of the bottom 90 percent had grown at the average pace over this period—meaning that wages grew equally across-the-board—then the bottom 90 percent’s wages would have grown by 32 percent, more than double the actual growth.

Trotting out this lying graph again and again doesn't make it truth.

That's actually hourly wages of goods producing workers. These days almost all good jobs are service jobs.

Garbage. Manufacturing workers still earn 13% more in hourly compensation than comparable workers in the rest of the private sector (down from 17% in the 1980s).

You'll find the same bifurcation for median wages. Even median household income bifurcated from productivity growth, despite the typical household going from one to two breadwinners.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Trotting out this lying graph again and again doesn't make it truth.

That's actually hourly wages of goods producing workers. These days almost all good jobs are service jobs.

As the website cites the source of the graph as being: EPI analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Economic Analysis data it's reasonable to assume that they are not lying.

The data is true, just not what it presents itself as. Note the qualification I provided that's missing from almost all copies of this chart.

Let's say that the graph is not entirely accurate. It doesn't matter because we have multiple sources that tell us that your average worker has been dissatisfied with their pay rate increases - mostly stagnant in relation to increasing costs, housing, etc - for years.....years in which the upper layers of society have enjoyed gains in income, adjusted for inflation....thank you very much, laughing all the way to the bank.

What we are seeing is that the "recovery" since the 2008 crash is mostly vapor. Likewise, the growth of the 2000's was the housing market, not the economy as a whole.

People aren't being left behind by the economy, the economy hasn't been performing nearly as well as the numbers suggest.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Trotting out this lying graph again and again doesn't make it truth.

That's actually hourly wages of goods producing workers. These days almost all good jobs are service jobs.

Garbage. Manufacturing workers still earn 13% more in hourly compensation than comparable workers in the rest of the private sector (down from 17% in the 1980s).

You'll find the same bifurcation for median wages. Even median household income bifurcated from productivity growth, despite the typical household going from one to two breadwinners.

Not a rebuttal.

There are a lot of shitty service sector jobs, but the good jobs are moving from manufacturing to service.

 

[DBT]

The data is true, just not what it presents itself as. Note the qualification I provided that's missing from almost all copies of this chart.

I don't think that your qualification addresses or changes anything. The divide between one sector of the community, the high earners in relation to middle class and down is supported by several lines of information.

High income earners have enjoyed substantial gains in income, while the wages of the average worker have stagnated over the same period. That widening disparity is the problem.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Trotting out this lying graph again and again doesn't make it truth.

That's actually hourly wages of goods producing workers. These days almost all good jobs are service jobs.

Garbage. Manufacturing workers still earn 13% more in hourly compensation than comparable workers in the rest of the private sector (down from 17% in the 1980s).

You'll find the same bifurcation for median wages. Even median household income bifurcated from productivity growth, despite the typical household going from one to two breadwinners.

Not a rebuttal.

There are a lot of shitty service sector jobs, but the good jobs are moving from manufacturing to service.

Very much a rebuttal.

If, as you claim, the chart doesn't apply to service sector workers, then the situation would be even worse than depicted since manufacturing workers earn on average 13% more.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The data is true, just not what it presents itself as. Note the qualification I provided that's missing from almost all copies of this chart.

I don't think that your qualification addresses or changes anything. The divide between one sector of the community, the high earners in relation to middle class and down is supported by several lines of information.

High income earners have enjoyed substantial gains in income, while the wages of the average worker have stagnated over the same period. That widening disparity is the problem.

The point is the high earners used to be in manufacturing. Now they are mostly in service or professional jobs. The nature of the labor market has changed, that chart is really showing that manufacturing has lost. Of course it has lost, there aren't a lot of skilled manufacturing jobs anymore. The skilled jobs are dealing with that automation.

Using that chart as evidence of the plight of workers is like using the fate of buggy manufacturers as evidence that we are much worse off than we were 100 years ago.

 

[DBT]

The data is true, just not what it presents itself as. Note the qualification I provided that's missing from almost all copies of this chart.

I don't think that your qualification addresses or changes anything. The divide between one sector of the community, the high earners in relation to middle class and down is supported by several lines of information.

High income earners have enjoyed substantial gains in income, while the wages of the average worker have stagnated over the same period. That widening disparity is the problem.

The point is the high earners used to be in manufacturing. Now they are mostly in service or professional jobs. The nature of the labor market has changed, that chart is really showing that manufacturing has lost. Of course it has lost, there aren't a lot of skilled manufacturing jobs anymore. The skilled jobs are dealing with that automation.

Using that chart as evidence of the plight of workers is like using the fate of buggy manufacturers as evidence that we are much worse off than we were 100 years ago.

Up on the list of high earners are the CEO's, board of directors, upper and middle management, including many professionals, lawyers, doctors, dentists and so on.

The top 10% of individuals had incomes exceeding $75,000.

The top 5% of households, three quarters of whom had two income earners, had incomes of $166,200 (about 10 times the 2009 US minimum wage, for one income earner, and about 5 times the 2009 US minimum wage for two income earners) or higher,[11] with the top 10% having incomes well in excess of $100,000.[13]

The top 0.12% had incomes exceeding $1,600,000 annually.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The point is the high earners used to be in manufacturing. Now they are mostly in service or professional jobs. The nature of the labor market has changed, that chart is really showing that manufacturing has lost. Of course it has lost, there aren't a lot of skilled manufacturing jobs anymore. The skilled jobs are dealing with that automation.

Using that chart as evidence of the plight of workers is like using the fate of buggy manufacturers as evidence that we are much worse off than we were 100 years ago.

Up on the list of high earners are the CEO's, board of directors, upper and middle management, including many professionals, lawyers, doctors, dentists and so on.

The top 10% of individuals had incomes exceeding $75,000.

The top 5% of households, three quarters of whom had two income earners, had incomes of $166,200 (about 10 times the 2009 US minimum wage, for one income earner, and about 5 times the 2009 US minimum wage for two income earners) or higher,[11] with the top 10% having incomes well in excess of $100,000.[13]

The top 0.12% had incomes exceeding $1,600,000 annually.

I oppose a national wealth tax because it's unfair. Manufacturers, and other such capital intensive businesses, must have far more in assets to generate a return compared to professionals. I think that it's much more fair to tax people Nationally based on their actual cash flow.

 

[DBT]

The point is the high earners used to be in manufacturing. Now they are mostly in service or professional jobs. The nature of the labor market has changed, that chart is really showing that manufacturing has lost. Of course it has lost, there aren't a lot of skilled manufacturing jobs anymore. The skilled jobs are dealing with that automation.

Using that chart as evidence of the plight of workers is like using the fate of buggy manufacturers as evidence that we are much worse off than we were 100 years ago.

Up on the list of high earners are the CEO's, board of directors, upper and middle management, including many professionals, lawyers, doctors, dentists and so on.

The top 10% of individuals had incomes exceeding $75,000.

The top 5% of households, three quarters of whom had two income earners, had incomes of $166,200 (about 10 times the 2009 US minimum wage, for one income earner, and about 5 times the 2009 US minimum wage for two income earners) or higher,[11] with the top 10% having incomes well in excess of $100,000.[13]

The top 0.12% had incomes exceeding $1,600,000 annually.

I oppose a national wealth tax because it's unfair. Manufacturers, and other such capital intensive businesses, must have far more in assets to generate a return compared to professionals. I think that it's much more fair to tax people Nationally based on their actual cash flow.

Possibly. But maybe some businesses would seek to camouflage their cash flow by incurring 'additional running costs'

 

[James Brown]

Isn't that how movie studios can earn hundreds of millions of dollars in theaters, and yet fail to show any profits?

That's why actors no longer work for percentages of net receipts, but for percentages of gross receipts, because studios always manage to spend every last dollar of the gross receipts, leaving absolutely no net profits, darn the luck.

 

[ZiprHead]

The point is the high earners used to be in manufacturing. Now they are mostly in service or professional jobs. The nature of the labor market has changed, that chart is really showing that manufacturing has lost. Of course it has lost, there aren't a lot of skilled manufacturing jobs anymore. The skilled jobs are dealing with that automation.

Using that chart as evidence of the plight of workers is like using the fate of buggy manufacturers as evidence that we are much worse off than we were 100 years ago.

Up on the list of high earners are the CEO's, board of directors, upper and middle management, including many professionals, lawyers, doctors, dentists and so on.

The top 10% of individuals had incomes exceeding $75,000.

The top 5% of households, three quarters of whom had two income earners, had incomes of $166,200 (about 10 times the 2009 US minimum wage, for one income earner, and about 5 times the 2009 US minimum wage for two income earners) or higher,[11] with the top 10% having incomes well in excess of $100,000.[13]

The top 0.12% had incomes exceeding $1,600,000 annually.

I oppose a national wealth tax because it's unfair. Manufacturers, and other such capital intensive businesses, must have far more in assets to generate a return compared to professionals. I think that it's much more fair to tax people Nationally based on their actual cash flow.

I thought wealth taxes applied only to personal wealth, not corporate.

 

[RVonse]

The point is the high earners used to be in manufacturing. Now they are mostly in service or professional jobs. The nature of the labor market has changed, that chart is really showing that manufacturing has lost. Of course it has lost, there aren't a lot of skilled manufacturing jobs anymore. The skilled jobs are dealing with that automation.

Using that chart as evidence of the plight of workers is like using the fate of buggy manufacturers as evidence that we are much worse off than we were 100 years ago.

Up on the list of high earners are the CEO's, board of directors, upper and middle management, including many professionals, lawyers, doctors, dentists and so on.

The top 10% of individuals had incomes exceeding $75,000.

The top 5% of households, three quarters of whom had two income earners, had incomes of $166,200 (about 10 times the 2009 US minimum wage, for one income earner, and about 5 times the 2009 US minimum wage for two income earners) or higher,[11] with the top 10% having incomes well in excess of $100,000.[13]

The top 0.12% had incomes exceeding $1,600,000 annually.

I oppose a national wealth tax because it's unfair. Manufacturers, and other such capital intensive businesses, must have far more in assets to generate a return compared to professionals. I think that it's much more fair to tax people Nationally based on their actual cash flow.

There are people like (former governor of Minnesota) Jesse Ventura who say we should completely get rid of the federal income tax and raise revenue by a national sales tax. Personally, I think the idea has a lot of merit because the tax only reaches people who want live and act like millionaires. Simply making the money alone would not be punished. It would also be far easier for everyone because there would be no forms for individuals to fill out. Make the sales tax very low on food and subsistance and very high on luxuries like jets and big boats.

 

[barbos]

I oppose a national wealth tax because it's unfair. Manufacturers, and other such capital intensive businesses, must have far more in assets to generate a return compared to professionals. I think that it's much more fair to tax people Nationally based on their actual cash flow.

There are people like (former governor of Minnesota) Jesse Ventura who say we should completely get rid of the federal income tax and raise revenue by a national sales tax. Personally, I think the idea has a lot of merit because the tax only reaches people who want live and act like millionaires. Simply making the money alone would not be punished. It would also be far easier for everyone because there would be no forms for individuals to fill out. Make the sales tax very low on food and subsistance and very high on luxuries like jets and big boats.

Exactly. It does not really matter how much particular ordinary guy pays taxes, what matters how much he has left to spend.
Taxes should be related to actual consumption. Tax on wealth/income creates incentive for the government ignore business malfeasance as long as they can collect taxes and fines. That's why Trump is not in prison, and that's why VW execs are not in prison for their emission scam.

 

[Bomb#20]

There is no contradiction. Middle class incomes have risen but not kept up with inflation;

You keep repeating yourself, and then you keep posting the same material...

''In fact, if we look at U.S. wages over the longer term, wages after inflation have barely budged over the last 44 years.
<etc. snipped>

...that fails to back up your claim. "after inflation have barely budged" does not mean "have not kept up with inflation".

Reality check: Middle class incomes have kept up with inflation. They just haven't beaten inflation by as much as we wish they had. According to Wikipedia, "All areas of the income strata have seen their incomes rise since the late 1960s, especially during the late 1990s." Lower class incomes have kept up with inflation too. They've even beaten inflation, slightly.

 

[DBT]

There is no contradiction. Middle class incomes have risen but not kept up with inflation;

You keep repeating yourself, and then you keep posting the same material...

There is only one thing to repeat. There is a large and growing disparity between high income earners and the average worker. The former have enjoyed large gains while the incomes of the latter have largely stagnated, hence the general sense of disatisfaction.

That is the essence of it. It can be repeated ad infinitum, true the first time it was said and true every time following.

Not to mention the super rich and the rest of us.

...that fails to back up your claim. "after inflation have barely budged" does not mean "have not kept up with inflation".

It's not my claim. It is what the article says.

Reality check: Middle class incomes have kept up with inflation. They just haven't beaten inflation by as much as we wish they had. According to Wikipedia, "All areas of the income strata have seen their incomes rise since the late 1960s, especially during the late 1990s." Lower class incomes have kept up with inflation too. They've even beaten inflation, slightly.

It depends on many factors.

It's not as simple as you'd like to think.

For example.

Even if the economy is on a roll, many Americans aren’t feeling the benefit.

''Real wages effectively declined in 2018, according to figures released this month from the PayScale Index, a formula from the Seattle-based salary comparison site. PayScale said the median wage increases, when adjusted for inflation, were only 1.1% since last year and 1% over the past year. “However, the modest uptick in nominal wages failed to bring real wages out of the red for the year,” it said.

In fact, when adjusted for cost of living increases, real wages actually declined 1.3% since the end of 2017, PayScale said in a report this month.''

Real Wage Growth Is Actually Falling

''We see that real wage growth peaked in 2015. Since then, it’s been trending down, except for a brief pop in 2017. And it’s been about zero in recent months.

Economists and journalists know about inflation. They often report gross domestic product growth in real terms, for instance. But not wage growth. For that, they assume inflation doesn’t matter.

But it matters a lot. Workers whose earnings don’t keep up with inflation find themselves falling behind. Eventually, they notice the problem and look for someone to blame. Hence, our current social and political discord.''

''Real wages are flat and trending the wrong way. Yet politicians from the president on down—and experts who should know better—tells workers to celebrate their good fortune.

What’s really happened is a redefinition of “good fortune.” Simply having a steady paycheck now means you should count yourself lucky.

Labor Isn’t Scarce

Economic theory says labor scarcity should force employers to raise wages. That’s indeed happening in certain segments. But it misses a crucial point.

Labor isn’t scarce in the growing number of occupations that can be automated. Supply is abundant if you include the machines.

I think this helps explain the wage puzzle. Low-wage workers don’t ask for more because they are (correctly) afraid of being replaced. And employers have little incentive to raise wages for those workers.

This probably won’t end well. As automation technology improves, millions of people will get steadily poorer and unhappier, and millions more will join them.''

 

[Harry Bosch]

I oppose a national wealth tax because it's unfair. Manufacturers, and other such capital intensive businesses, must have far more in assets to generate a return compared to professionals. I think that it's much more fair to tax people Nationally based on their actual cash flow.

Possibly. But maybe some businesses would seek to camouflage their cash flow by incurring 'additional running costs'

Auditors are pretty good at catching unnecessary expenses.