7 ms·
You just described the entire American Economy.
by myowncrapulence 10y ago
You just described the entire American Economy.
- devoply 10y agoFunny thing is this also describes the job market. Very low wages at the bottom, not even enough to sustain a living, nothing in the middle, high wages at the top. Hollowing out of the middle. All a result of supposed efficiency, but really it's just externalities pushed onto the employees. It's not as if they can afford it, they have no choice.
- hueving 10y ago>Very low wages at the bottom, not even enough to sustain a living, nothing in the middle, This is false. 15 percent in the US are at or below the poverty line. The remaining 85 percent certainly aren't at the top.
- devoply 10y agoI am not saying it's there. But it's getting there. This shows it more clearly. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Distribution_of_Annual_Household_Income_in_the_United_States_2010.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Distribu...
- ryhamz 10y agoYou assume that $1 above poverty line is "middle". I certainly don't.
- hueving 10y agoMedian income in the US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_Unit... "nothing in the middle" is a blatant lie and hackernews discussions are much better when they are backed by facts and logical arguments rather than political clap trap.
- croon 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Personal_Household_Income_U.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United... 71% making less than $50k/y. 51% of households.
- wott 10y agoA median says close to nothing about repartition. That's not a fact that you can use in a logical argument against your opponent's claim about repartition.
- pc86 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Distribution_of_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United... There's quite a few households and quite a lot of people between $35k and $100k. The claim that there is no middle class is blatantly, provably false. The very, very top has a lot. I don't think anybody is disputing that (I'm certainly not). But there are a lot of people who make a solid, middle class income.
- myowncrapulence 10y agoThe share of total national income for the middle class has been in decline for 50 years. The piece of the pie that the middle class represents is shrinking. https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CPSCharticle_fig3.png https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/...
- croon 10y agoYou're assuming the poverty line is a relevant metric. And regardless of the accuracy of that assumption, you still don't offer any information on the income spread over percentiles, nor a source for your one claim.
- hueving 10y agoThe poverty line is very relevant when the entire discussion is about getting by.
- croon 10y agoAgain assuming the meaning of "getting by". > In 2015, in the United States, the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 was at an annual income of US$11,770; the threshold for a family group of four, including two children, was US$24,250. Do you consider this getting by?
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoI think that's the general setup you get when an economy cartelizes. The untold story of American inequality has been the reversal of decades of antitrust work by the state, resulting in the oligopolization of most major labor, consumer, and capital markets. http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/populism-with-a-brain/ http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/popul...