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1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

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Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#111

Post by cmrdporcupine »

seibelj wrote: post #100
llamataboot wrote: post #75

Some things are already starting to give way pretty loudly, and others are yet to come. You simply cannot maintain a democratic society (for whatever nominal value of democracy you want) with these levels on inequality and non-shared misery. I’m not sure what the next decade holds for the US, but it’s either gonna be some major-scale reinvestment and redistribution or it’s gonna get pretty damn unstable.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

Is it not the case that taxpayers in the U.S. can write-off interest on their mortgages? That's insanely regressive.

My understanding is that it's all the deductions that make the US system on the whole quite regressive.

In any case US taxpayers don't appear to be getting good value for their money.

They do have a pretty insane military though...

The Economist article is paywalled so I can't read beyond the intro. But the headline is intriguing: "gov't spending is not." That seems to be me to be the crux of it; Canada's tax system isn't terribly effective and we've been running deficits for seemingly forever, but at least all that debt is on the whole focused on things like health and education; while the US has an absolutely huge debt that seems to produce little of value for its population.

EDIT: I'll add that Canada is no worker's paradise. Inequality here is still very pronounced, and the gov't is also involved in all sorts of stupid subsidies on failing industries, and seems unable to effectively build new infrastructure. And our housing market just gets more and more irrational every year.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#112

Post by arp242 »

WalterBright wrote: post #110

I've heard reasonable people define poverty as being in the lowest quintile of income, meaning the poverty rate will always be 20%.

His figure incorporates both jobless workers — people who were actively searching for work in the past month — as well as adults who are earning below $20,000 a year, or below the poverty line.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#113

Post by seibelj »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #111
seibelj wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

Is it not the case that taxpayers in the U.S. can write-off interest on their mortgages? That's insanely regressive. My understanding is that it's all the deductions that make the US system on the whole quite regressive. In any case US taxpayers don't appear to be getting good value for their money. They do have a pretty insane military though... The Economist article is paywalled so I can't read beyond the intro. Bu…

I agree that’s a handout to the rich that should be eliminated, although it was drastically curtailed with the expansion of the “standard deduction” which made it irrelevant for the majority of taxpayers.

The most hilarious thing of all is that Trump passed a tax cut, and one of the very few tax increases as part of it was to eliminate the ability to deduct state taxes from federal above 10k. The only people this affects are rich people in high-tax blue states. And the democrats are bitching and moaning to remove this, because again, no one likes paying taxes, even those who pretend to love tax increases https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/12/house-democrats-stimulus-bil...

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#114

Post by organsnyder »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #107
qppo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not difficult to call that poverty at all. It's uncomfortable or upsetting, but not difficult.

I guess it shows how far we’ve come, as that income would have been considered rich in 1900!

By "we", do you mean inflation?

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#115

Post by WalterBright »

arp242 wrote: post #112
WalterBright wrote: post #110

I've heard reasonable people define poverty as being in the lowest quintile of income, meaning the poverty rate will always be 20%.

His figure incorporates both jobless workers — people who were actively searching for work in the past month — as well as adults who are earning below $20,000 a year, or below the poverty line.

It's a more meta observation that "poverty" has many subjective definitions. Certainly many (not all) people we would consider living in poverty today would be considered well off even 100 years ago.

For example, owning a functioning automobile was a huge luxury only for the rich 100 years ago.

For another example, the terms of the debate have shifted. It used to be about the objective state of the poor people. Today it is less about that and more about the subjective state of poor people relative to the state of wealthy people, i.e. "inequality".

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#116

Post by [deleted] »

lopmotr wrote: post #93
toomuchtodo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having spoken with someone today, at length, that thinks any improvement in the current situation is “socialism”, I think common ground won’t be found with some folks (and that’s okay, as long as you can get a majority onboard). You have to do the right thing regardless (go to the mat for overwhelming fiscal policy stimulus firepower short term, and driving towards improved policy long term, increasing the minimum wa…

"improvement"? The fact that you don't seem to see your own bias shows that you might be part of the "no common ground" problem. Are you willing to accept that changes which you see as making things worse might actually be improvements? Even changes favored by that person you spoke with?

[deleted]

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#117

Post by rbg246 »

seibelj wrote: post #100
llamataboot wrote: post #75

Some things are already starting to give way pretty loudly, and others are yet to come. You simply cannot maintain a democratic society (for whatever nominal value of democracy you want) with these levels on inequality and non-shared misery. I’m not sure what the next decade holds for the US, but it’s either gonna be some major-scale reinvestment and redistribution or it’s gonna get pretty damn unstable.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

That's interesting about the progressive taxation. My quick look at income tax rates in the US is that there is a lot of progressiveness in the income ranges of the top 5% rather than through the income levels that the bell curve of Americans live in. I am not an expert or spent anytime I must say so I'm not arguing just my first look.

What income range do you define as middle class? And What's lower class in the US income wise?

Also for a bit of context what government services do people receive welfare for in the US? What are the big sercices that are driving those net negative tax payments?

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#118

Post by [deleted] »

_qulr wrote: post #105
yalogin wrote: post #97

Income and wealth disparity is the biggest problem in the US and it’s not given the attention it deserves. The republicans have no interest in addressing it, in fact they actively make it worse every chance they get. The Democrats want to address it but cannot focus. It’s what is causing these symptoms like trump in the country.

> The Democrats want to address it but cannot focus. What does that mean? Do they have ADHD?

[deleted]

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#119

Post by systemvoltage »

arcticbull wrote: post #66
systemvoltage wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR is American.

Yeah I know, I called them out as an exception, PBS is decent too. I was referring to "American [mainstream] news." I recognize I wasn't clear, so my bad.

Definitely an exception. Here are some good sources:

CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/

NY Times: https://nytimes.com/

Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Wall Street Journal: https://wsj.com/

PBS News Hour: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/

Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/

Philadelphia Inquirer: https://www.inquirer.com/

Finantial Times: https://www.ft.com/

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#120

Post by systemvoltage »

llamataboot wrote: post #75

Some things are already starting to give way pretty loudly, and others are yet to come. You simply cannot maintain a democratic society (for whatever nominal value of democracy you want) with these levels on inequality and non-shared misery. I’m not sure what the next decade holds for the US, but it’s either gonna be some major-scale reinvestment and redistribution or it’s gonna get pretty damn unstable.

As soon as the vaccine is distributed on a mass scale, things will start to become normal.

Stability is directly proportional to the strength of economy. When people struggle, they take up on the streets. Not to take away anything from the BLM movement (I support it obviously), but my guess for its stronghold and how it became mainstream is because of the pandemic. 2 months into the pandemic in May 2020, a lot of anger was pent up. It was all released in the unrests we saw in pretty much all major cities. Same goes for far-right extremists, Boogaloo boys, QAnon, etc.

There hasn't been as many protests in the world in pretty much every country as much as we had in 2020.

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