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Too Much Income EQUALITY? Bottom 60% of Earners Roughly Equal When Welfare, Taxes Included

Too Much Income EQUALITY? Bottom 60% of Earners Roughly Equal When Welfare, Taxes Included

While AOC, Bernie, Elizabeth and their fellow travelers decry “income inequality”, a new book claims America’s problem is too much income EQUALITY. And as Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders and Warren foment rage toward “millionaires and billionaires”, that’s not where our coming troubles lie. Here’s why: If you include so-called transfer payments to the poor and you subtract the cost of taxes from working folks a bit higher up the income scale, per capital income is roughly equal.

This episode of Right Angle previews the idea behind the new book, “The Myth of American Inequality“, by Phil Gramm, John Early and Robert Ekelund, available starting September 15, 2022. 

Scott Ott, Stephen Green and Bill Whittle have hosted a news panel discussion show — now five times weekly — since 2009, thanks to our Members. To join these producers, unlock access to Backstage content, Member-written blog, forums and comments, tap the big green button above. To make a one-time or recurring donation without joining, tap the big blue button above. Access the complete Right Angle archive. 

10 replies on “Too Much Income EQUALITY? Bottom 60% of Earners Roughly Equal When Welfare, Taxes Included”

As the system is currently set up, there are illegal aliens (invaders) that are working jobs under the table and paying no taxes, while their wives and children are being supported by multiple lucrative programs, such that “Jose Usurper” is actually living far better than “Joe Average”, who works a regular job, pays taxes and pays for insurance and pays his medical and dental bills, buys all his family’s food and clothing and other necessities, etc. I see this all the time in my local community, and wonder how long this disparate inverted inequality can possibly last? The Joe vs. Jose essay is short and to the point, wish I could find it online again, but it has probably been disappeared as so much else that needs to be shared is anymore!

I remember reading something decades ago that compared incomes by quintile. Don’t remember it all now, but one of the points was untaxed income coming from welfare, food stamps, section 8 housing payments, programs like CARE to assist in utility payments for low income people, and the upshot was many of these people had income exceeding the poverty level by 70% or more. When you take into consideration so many of them were working side jobs for case under the table, or small time pot sellers, they were in the second quintile income level.

Guys, great episode bringing this book, and its ideas and conclusions, to our attention. Thank you.

Inflation at work: $30 for a 264 page book that would have cost $18 if published last year (or does having 3 authors increase a book’s cost?)

This report from the Heritage Foundation, from almost a year ago, has a similar story, except without accounting for the reduction in the middle quintile’s income due to taxation.
https://www.heritage.org/welfare/report/largest-welfare-increase-us-history-will-boost-government-support-76400-poor-family?utm_source=THF_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TheAgenda&mkt_tok=ODI0LU1IVC0zMDQAAAGAwqwN2L_ctk1krHFNrv4FFAAX-ym6B41-CsR_cJKyyb7cOoLr8HQhqZsslGGj_T2PXm69rTr46L-umRa-u7tgzfo2lPigBNz-1FfU_5Wwwp02oLk

Largest Welfare Increase in U.S. History Will Boost Government Support to $76,400 per Poor Family [11/8/2021; 1 hour+ to read]KEY TAKEAWAYS

  1. The U.S. has an extensive support system for the poor; the average poor family with children receives $65,200 in government benefits and resources each year.
  2. President Biden proposes the largest welfare expansion in U.S history, which would add some $11,300 in new benefits for each poor family.
  3. Expanding government benefits and support to over $76,400 per family while scrapping work requirements would trap many families in costly and harmful dependence.

They keep changing the real meaning behind the word “poverty”, too. They ratchet the definition of poverty up in absolute terms by calculating it as a relative percentage. Most of us consider real poverty to be sleeping in doorways without shelter, limited prospect of eating, total absence of medical care, or a family with really too many kids to properly care for, etc. The definition of poverty really should be based on a set of “absolute” minimal requirements, which can be open for discussion/ debate, but might perhaps include:

  1. Waterproof shelter, with hot and cold running water, absence of bug and rodent infestation, with adequate insulation and heating for winter. Perhaps also AC in southern climes?? 300-400 minimum square feet per person?? [$1500-2000 monthly rent equivalent; plus applicable allowance for utilities (but not cell phones or internet access).]
  2. Core food income/ input, including soap and cleaners, excluding chips and related fattening items, etc. [$3000 per person per year, or slightly less??]
  3. Does not include auto or other forms of personal transportation (or maybe it does in certain non-urban locations??). Or an allowance for bicycles? Or for bus fare???
  4. Access to normal medical care [$2000 per person per year, for normal checkups, vision, dental, mammograms, etc.??] and UMTALA criteria for more urgent situations.
  5. Enough income to remain reasonably clothed for the ambient weather [$1500 per person per year is probably extravagant*, but I have lost track of costs for winter environments, or for non-retirees.]
  6. This is already up to approximately $53,600 per year for a family of 4, so I am probably being overly generous.

But the principle holds, with COLAs, with whatever adjustments seem valid for various situations and locations. With a realistic criteria, I suspect almost no one lives in “poverty” in the USA today, except those addicts and mentally ill people who are a different kind of problem.

I have never been anywhere near the above sort of “difficult” circumstance, so maybe I am not the best person to comment, but this could be the baseline for starting a conversation on the minimal criteria to apply.

*My wife quite often finds a $60 to $80 item on sale at Kohl’s or at Goodwill for maybe $6 to $10 – she loves “the hunt”.

I don’t think people seeing income disparities will lead to revolution. My guess is that as we see that “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” and serious food shortages that will be when non state sponsored mobs (BLAmtifa) take to the streets
Look no further than what happened in Sri Lanka, and how our media has done such a thorough job of ignoring such a huge story

Perhaps the best way to bring about civil collapse in America is for the party who traditionally supported the poorer and working classes of Americans to abandon them and the voting power base they represented for an elitist rich class who care about anything else at all. Which is what we’re seeing happen. This makes me suspect that the push towards collapse is intentional.

One of two results is therefore inevitable. Either those abandoned classes are left in a void without representation or the other Party steps into that void and picks up those people by providing representation. In the former case the Democrat Party hopes to fill the void with what Scott is referring to as “transfer payments” and in the latter case the Republican Party sees a tremendous opportunity to pick up a major voting bloc power base.

So you’d think the Republican Party would be working hard on that and you’d be right to think that. The problem is the “Old Republicans” who want to keep the Republican Party where it has stood traditionally in the past. These “Old Republicans” are represented by the likes of Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney. These types are politically indistinguishable from our political enemies, differing in name only. Failure to overcome those types will result in the implosion of the Republican Party.

Things are just not going to work out in a positive result any other way. The Republicans can keep up their smaller government and lower taxes campaigns only if that newly abandoned voting bloc of the Democrats can be brought into the Republican Party though economic, cultural and ideological means.

This should be the goal of every Republican candidate and we should not be voting for any candidate that doesn’t understand that and work towards that goal.

Welcome back, BTW.

If the Frankfort school thought the plebians wouldn’t revolt because the capitalists were making life too good for them, they could be proven correct when the mercantilists stop making life good enough.
You have to provide both bread and circuses. If you only provide circuses, people looking for bread will stop paying attention and look for something else to eat. They might just find it on your table.

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