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You should look at the hourly bill rates for licensed electricians and plumbers. These are definitely blue collar jobs, yet their hourly rates are probably more than most software developers.
Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
81–90 of 302 posts
Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Less than people think. Back when taxes were so high, the rich were really good at tax avoidance. So the rate doesn't tell you the whole story. As one of the people whose opinion about working for a large company changed during the 1970s, I know I didn't consciously think about tax rates. (It's possible they affected me unconsciously though, via the examples of people who'd cleared more after tax due to lower rates.)
Back in the 1950s, the rich were really good at tax avoidance. All they had to do was to donate more than their total income to charity. (The so-called flying nun tax exemption.) This was doable because when you donated items that appreciated in value, you didn't get taxed on the increase in value, but got to claim the whole value. So if your parents had bought a lot of art, you could donate the art. Better yet you c…
Can you recommend any good books or papers on this phenomenon?
Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> Please, point to me one example of this blue collar utopia. Much of the "oil states" are like that. > What about CPAs, lawyers, and their must be some sort of corporate hierarchy wherever these people are employed right? (1) In other words, you don't actually know anything about these biz,so you're hoping that what you picked up watching "The Office" is reasonably close. It isn't. (2) Not really. How many lawyers d…
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Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> Please, point to me one example of this blue collar utopia. Much of the "oil states" are like that. > What about CPAs, lawyers, and their must be some sort of corporate hierarchy wherever these people are employed right? (1) In other words, you don't actually know anything about these biz,so you're hoping that what you picked up watching "The Office" is reasonably close. It isn't. (2) Not really. How many lawyers d…
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Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#85One bite-sized takeaway: own a company, don't be an employee.
Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> Please, point to me one example of this blue collar utopia. Much of the "oil states" are like that. > What about CPAs, lawyers, and their must be some sort of corporate hierarchy wherever these people are employed right? (1) In other words, you don't actually know anything about these biz,so you're hoping that what you picked up watching "The Office" is reasonably close. It isn't. (2) Not really. How many lawyers d…
A skilled tradesmen can get six figures.
Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#87Technological progress should cause increasing economic inequality, because the bottom end of the scale is firmly anchored at zero (someone taking a vacation), while technology gives the top end ever more powerful levers. So the interesting question is not why economic inequality is increasing, but why for a few decades in the mid twentieth century the trend was reversed. There are probably several factors at work he…
I suspect you're the exception rather than the rule, Paul. Checking the numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the percentage of self-employed workers in the economy has FALLEN from 10 percent of the workforce in 1968 to 8.5 percent today.[1] Fewer people are working for themselves, although you're right that the 1980s seem to be when things started to change.
[1] http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab9.htm -- only stats on unincorporated single-owner businesses go back to the 1960s, but the stats on incorporated single-owner businesses don't show any significant change over the last 10 years, so it seems hard to argue that Americans are really more entrepreneurial now and those numbers just aren't catching it.
Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
People making your argument always mention TVs, they never mention rent, land, food, education, childcare, or healthcare. 1. Rent 2. Land 3. Food 4. Education 5. Childcare 6. Healthcare You know, the stuff that actually matters. I'll give up my $400 LCD TV to be able to afford having my spouse stay home. No problem. I'll give up my Hyundai to be able to get a degree on the cheap like they did back in the 60s. I'll gi…
Repost of something I wrote the other day that I think is relevant: My very average house today is a huge luxury compared to the very average house my grandparents bought in the 60s. I have a cable bill, an iPhone bill, an internet bill, a netflix bill, and too many various SaaS subscriptions. My grandparents had none of those. I also have a much higher power bill to pay for all my consumer electronics and air condit…
You ARE better off.
But you are also in the top 20%.
The bottom 80% are not as lucky as you. The bottom 80% cannot afford 2 cars, or a house, or cable, or an iPhone, etc.
Have some fucking perspective. You are doing well; but look around you. The rest of the country is NOT.
A tremendous part of the economy is out of work and cannot even afford to go to the doctor. You're living in a bubble.
Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#89Re: Share of Income Gains by Quintile - Great Depression til Now
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't automatically assume it's a problem, as so many people seem to. I don't assume that all economic inequality is the medieval type, where the rich are the winners of a zero sum game. At the high end of the scale it doesn't seem to be a problem. I've seen a lot of people go from middle class to rich when their startups succeeded. Most live pretty quietly. I would guess most of the damage done by economic inequal…
>I don't think there is much debate that societies should try to mitigate that. You haven't been reading HN then, and you haven't met the Tea Party. There are a lot of people here who believe that poor people deserve their lot and should wallow in it. In my opinion society needs to use tax dollars to ensure a basic standard of living for all citizens. This idea (the welfare state) is deeply unpopular in contemporary…
Just because I might disagree with your methods of equalizing income, doesn't mean I "believe poor people deserve their lot and should wallow in it."
You've turned a political disagreement about the methods to accomplish some desirable goal do so into a moral argument. You've decided that if I think there is a better way to elevate the poor than your way, I must want them to stay poor and thus must be evil.
Why do you feel you need to frame the argument as such?