The Rich Get Richer - This Infographic Says It All
For decades now there has been the outright cry of a shrinking middle class in the United States. That, coupled with a larger concentration of wealth among the one percent has been to the chagrin of the American public for some time.
However, most don't know what the actual income and wage numbers look like. I recently stumbled across this info in an awesome article on Vox.
Where'd My Money Go?!?
In 1989 this was the income breakdown per every $100 USD among the different wage classes.
As you can see the top 20% got a large chunk of that income, but it was less than half of the total.
The Rich Get Richer
Over the next 25 years a clear direction had been traveled. One where the share of each $100 USD grew for the top 20% and shrunk for every other income class.
Come 2014 this is how that $100 USD was distributed.
It really is happening
Apparently the rich are indeed getting richer while the middle class has seen income shrink.
During the period between 1989 and 2014 we have seen both political parties; democrats and republicans in control of the white house, the senate and/or the house of representatives.
Who knows if this is something that economic policy can fix, but obviously neither party has been able to reverse the trend.
A flat tax rate for all citizens regardless of income could possibly do it as everyone would then pay their "fair share" of the income they make. Thus, less income would be kept from various tax loopholes on investments and more would be kept by the average wage earner.
Just my random opinion, either way let's do our best to get in that top 20% if this is the structure we are forced to work within.
Published by ScaredyCatGuide
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the infographic doesn't tell it's middles thats shrink or the richest simply move faster than others.
Thanks. I do like those cartoon graphics.
I hope the crypto market is an escalator up that ladder.
Yeah, I hear that!
It's interesting to see they're taking the money from the middle class as the poor have been raped till there was nothing left. During the great depression, the wealthy were warned about public displays of affluence around the poor lest they spark a public uprising...
We could see a scenario like that once ago. In fact, the % of income controlled by the top 20% is now as high as it was in the late 1920's. Maybe a coincidence, maybe we are on the brink of something bad. Who knows.
I think the problem in the US is that every level of government seems to require donations to stay afloat... which ultimately means policy makers are beholden to their largest donators, so a fair flat tax rate would never get passed... even if 99% of constituents demand it.
I honestly don't know what the solution is for the US.
I don't think a flat tax is the way. There have been tons of arguments against it before me and I'm sure you've heard them all. I do think that we should eliminate certain deductions, but often the ones that certain politicians try to eliminate are ones that help the poorest, rather than ones that help tax dodging rich people. There should perhaps be a minimum tax, perhaps with a slight rise according to income. But any change that drastic to the tax code would require them to rework all sorts of things and the reason we're in this mess is because they're too lazy and corrupt to fix it in the first place.
I think they should start cleaning up the laws and the tax code, but they won't. They could also have extra fees for certain things. Carbon taxes and the like are there to reduce the profit on dirty industries and force them to update their technology. Instead they fight against them. They could put all sorts of extra taxes on specific industries and reduce their profits. They could also reduce exemptions for certain industries.
They're not going to do anything though, unless people force them to, and I doubt they will.
This will get only worst if fiat continues to be printed and inflated. Taxes may help but there will always be ways to not actually pay a fixed percentage given the number of economic incentives in the tax structure which are needed as well. If monetary policy would stabilize whereas there are true risks to the wealthy as well, more money will be distributed fairly as the wealthy would probably prefer to use human capital more than financial capital; but it may be wishful thinking from my part... This is tough to solve as risk/reward always needs to be available among all classes.
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This is indeed a problem of capitalism.
But, it is better than the problem of socialism where everyone becomes equally poor.
When you have competition, those who are better make more money.
A good salesman can make 10x, 100x more money than a poor salesman.
And, we shouldn't stop this, else we wouldn't get all the good from the really good workers.
Now, talking about the taxes...
There can never be a fair taxing system, because the taxing system is designed to tax the little people into the dirt.
The FED and the IRS are one entity.
The IRS is needed to steal actual productivity from people each year or their ponzi scheme will implode.
The "rich" can never be taxed. They are completely outside of the system. They don't hold their wealth in Federal Reserve Notes.
The problem as I see it is inflation, central bankers inflate monetary supply, which sends the more money chasing after the same goods and services.
Monetary inflation, leads to price inflation, and so those 1%'ers who hold assets, like stocks, and real-estate, etc, benefit disproportionately and grow their fortunes as a result.
Meanwhile, you and I who maybe own little or no assets, see absolutely zero benefit from price inflation. And worse still, the middle class and poorest people alike, suffer from the reduction in purchasing power which comes from that already described monetary inflation.
As a result, inflation taxes the saving power of middle class, while benefiting the richest 1% because they own a lot of assets which benefit from price inflation that is a direct result from monetary manipulation.
Ugh.... so annoying.
Hopefully, crypto can help solve this problem in the future. In the mean while, I buy silver, I buy bitcoin, because I want to escape that fiat manipulated system.
Thanks for the post.
Yes, exactly. This is why I preach to people all the time you must own assets. Especially income producing ones.
That's part of why I am here on Steemit, if this becomes what I imagine it could, these daily pay outs will be an income stream. :)
Have an awesome day!
It is always a great debate, there is the theory that if you re-distributed the world's cash amongst everyone evenly, the people that are rich now would find themselves rich again eventually.
I can agree with that. Some people have no desire to create more and others are driven to do so.