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U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

bloomberg.com

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Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#21

Post by jeffreyrogers »

netfire wrote: post #8
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #2

The statistics for gender are misleading. If you're just comparing the average wage of men and women then of course women are going to earn less: they work less than men on average. If you control for age and whether women have children the gap shrinks a lot (in some areas it reverses). And an increasing share of wages going to the top income brackets isn't in itself cause for concern, only if the members of the top…

The same could be said for the racial-based statistics, since race might be tied to cultural opinions which could impact how many hours a week or years in a lifetime someone works.

Well, the difference between race and gender is that most women have children, which take up a lot of time and require taking at least some time away from work. If the difference is due to cultural issues then maybe it makes sense to worry about the differences and try to address them, but if the difference just comes down to women have children so they work less that's a less compelling reason to try to equalize men's and women's wages (and as I noted, in some areas young women out earn men already, partly because they tend to be more educated).

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#22

Post by coliveira »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #16
knuththetruth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And an increasing share of wages going to the top income brackets isn't in itself cause for concern, only if the members of the top income brackets are largely static does it matter (since it means income is going to a small group of individuals, rather than a broader group of individuals who are swapped in and out of the top income groups). So a society in which there's competition to be among a handful of feudal l…

No, that's not what I said. I'm arguing for the same thing you are. But income inequality isn't itself a problem if there is mobility between the income groups. They statistics in the Bloomberg article show income inequality but don't show lack of mobility, and then say we've hit "a disturbing new threshold". There may be lack of mobility along with income inequality, but the article doesn't demonstrate it.

> There may be lack of mobility along with income inequality, but they article doesn't demonstrate it.

The article doesn't demonstrate it because that is not the goal of the article. But it is happening nonetheless:

https://phys.org/news/2017-04-upward-mobility-fallen-sharply...

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#23

Post by jeffreyrogers »

sbov wrote: post #19
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #2

The statistics for gender are misleading. If you're just comparing the average wage of men and women then of course women are going to earn less: they work less than men on average. If you control for age and whether women have children the gap shrinks a lot (in some areas it reverses). And an increasing share of wages going to the top income brackets isn't in itself cause for concern, only if the members of the top…

> If you control for age and whether women have children the gap shrinks a lot (in some areas it reverses). I generally agree with this line of thought, but you're also missing the higher level question: why, in our society, do we have to control for women who have children, but we don't have to control for men who have children?

Because women get pregnant and are the primary caregivers in most families?

Edit: Basically you have to control for what's causing women to work less when the have children. And the obvious answer is because if you're a woman it's hard to work when you have a child at home. If you're a man that's not really true since typically your wife/girlfriend takes care of the child. You can argue that maybe men should take more responsibility for raising their kids, but that's more of a social/political issue than an economic one.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#24

Post by rvo »

knuththetruth wrote: post #15
rvo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand what feudalism was/is...

No, I think I do. And so do a number of Silicon Valley "luminaries": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment

I have no idea why you linked that. The two comments you have posted make absolutely no sense. Non sequitors. Why did you use feudalism first, and then some weird alt right stuff second? What's going through your mind?

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#26

Post by NutriSugar »

sbov wrote: post #19
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #2

The statistics for gender are misleading. If you're just comparing the average wage of men and women then of course women are going to earn less: they work less than men on average. If you control for age and whether women have children the gap shrinks a lot (in some areas it reverses). And an increasing share of wages going to the top income brackets isn't in itself cause for concern, only if the members of the top…

> If you control for age and whether women have children the gap shrinks a lot (in some areas it reverses). I generally agree with this line of thought, but you're also missing the higher level question: why, in our society, do we have to control for women who have children, but we don't have to control for men who have children?

You can. Last I read, men who don't have children end up making less than men who do, and for young men in cities it has become less than women in the same demographic.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#27

Post by mtgx »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #16
knuththetruth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And an increasing share of wages going to the top income brackets isn't in itself cause for concern, only if the members of the top income brackets are largely static does it matter (since it means income is going to a small group of individuals, rather than a broader group of individuals who are swapped in and out of the top income groups). So a society in which there's competition to be among a handful of feudal l…

No, that's not what I said. I'm arguing for the same thing you are. But income inequality isn't itself a problem if there is mobility between the income groups. They statistics in the Bloomberg article show income inequality but don't show lack of mobility, and then say we've hit "a disturbing new threshold". There may be lack of mobility along with income inequality, but the article doesn't demonstrate it.

That's not what's happening though. First off, social mobility is declining, so let's get that out of the way:

http://www.businessinsider.com/social-mobility-is-on-the-dec...

Second, I think it's still a problem if the income of 90-98% of the country stagnates for decades, while the top earners get higher and higher income. Of course that affects inequality.

I'm also not sure it matters that much if the players at the top switch around if they have increasingly larger leverage on society.

For instance, we're seeing CEOs get rewarded larger and larger amounts of money every year, even if the companies lose money, like in this absurd case:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/22/snap-ceo-evan-spiegel-got-...

Where's that money coming from? The employees' potential salary increases? The retail investors' money? It seems to me that the rich keep siphoning off money from everyone else, and that's not sustainable.

They also get larger and larger amounts of money even when they get kicked out of the company for failing. This doesn't make sense to me at all. And I think the excuse that they need such amounts of money or otherwise they wouldn't take the job or something is utter BS. I'd more likely believe the board is giving them the money so the CEO doesn't sue the company, or better yet because the CEO was the one writing their checks before that, or something along those lines.

And this is just the corporate world. The US Congress seems to get crazier every year and listening more and more to corporations and their interests, and less and less to the people and solving real problems in the country (healthcare, infrastructure, etc).

It's like the whole American society is on the brink of collapse, and everyone just doesn't know it yet. Eventually, people will "suddenly" start to violently riot because of all this stuff added together, and it won't be pretty.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#28

Post by jadedhacker »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #23
sbov wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you control for age and whether women have children the gap shrinks a lot (in some areas it reverses). I generally agree with this line of thought, but you're also missing the higher level question: why, in our society, do we have to control for women who have children, but we don't have to control for men who have children?

Because women get pregnant and are the primary caregivers in most families? Edit: Basically you have to control for what's causing women to work less when the have children. And the obvious answer is because if you're a woman it's hard to work when you have a child at home. If you're a man that's not really true since typically your wife/girlfriend takes care of the child. You can argue that maybe men should take mor…

Political and social issues and economic issues are one. They are only disconnected in the strange milleu of libertarianism that America finds itself in.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#29

Post by ameister14 »

knuththetruth wrote: post #18
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not what I said. I'm arguing for the same thing you are. But income inequality isn't itself a problem if there is mobility between the income groups. They statistics in the Bloomberg article show income inequality but don't show lack of mobility, and then say we've hit "a disturbing new threshold". There may be lack of mobility along with income inequality, but the article doesn't demonstrate it.

>I'm arguing for the same thing you are. But income inequality isn't itself a problem if their is mobility between the income groups I'm not sure how you can't be arguing the same thing I am. The income inequality is what creates the immobility. This is demonstrated by other developed countries where there is less income inequality and greater social mobility, as others have pointed out. Can you elaborate?

Are you sure the income inequality creates the immobility and isn't just linked to the immobility in other ways? The demonstration of other countries implies the latter, but even that is really hard to prove.

Re: U.S. Income Inequality Hits a New Threshold

#30

Post by evanlivingston »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #16
knuththetruth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And an increasing share of wages going to the top income brackets isn't in itself cause for concern, only if the members of the top income brackets are largely static does it matter (since it means income is going to a small group of individuals, rather than a broader group of individuals who are swapped in and out of the top income groups). So a society in which there's competition to be among a handful of feudal l…

No, that's not what I said. I'm arguing for the same thing you are. But income inequality isn't itself a problem if there is mobility between the income groups. They statistics in the Bloomberg article show income inequality but don't show lack of mobility, and then say we've hit "a disturbing new threshold". There may be lack of mobility along with income inequality, but the article doesn't demonstrate it.

I disagree for two reasons.

1) What is mobility? The ability to move out of the lowest income group? How easily does that happen? If it's quick and easy, why doesn't everyone do it? And what about the reverse? How easy it for a person to move from a median income back into the lowest income. I think the idea of mobility is used as a reinforcement for the protestant work ethic / American dream sort of delusion that says "poor people can just work harder and save more and they won't be poor any more". But we have an enormous amount of evidence that points to that not being the case.

2) Also, you haven't provided an argument for why income inequality isn't a problem. If the lowest earners have extremely limited access to housing, healthcare or education, such as is the case in the U.S. I think that's a problem.

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