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Well let's pile some more random data onto this tire fire and jump to some conclusions. (edit: comparing 2015 to 2017) How much do Americans earn? 2015 data [

Well let's pile some more random data onto this tire fire and jump to some conclusions. (edit: comparing 2015 to 2017) How much do Americans earn? 2015 data [1]: median household income was $52K. If you're white. If you're black, the median is $34K. So, only like, 1/3 less. Or if you're asian, the median is $72K. 2017 data [2]: median household income apparently jumps to $62k. If you're white it's $65k, black it's $40k, asian $81k. Then the Social Security data (from 2013) shows the median net compensation for individuals is $28K. And according to tax data, the bottom 50% of taxpayers make less than $34K. Since the poverty level for a family of 4 (in 2017) is $25k, that means a majority of families of 4 (which, again have to pay 4x for more food, clothing, transportation, education, and miscellaneous) have a bit more than subsistence level money. 2017 data [3]: Census claims the poverty level for a household of 1 is $12k. What? Who the fuck is living in America on $12k a year? Adding up all the people making less than $15k comes to ~28% of Americans, or 92 million people, just above to below poverty level (SSA data for 2017 [5]). But Census poverty data [6] says only 12% are in poverty. There's a huge gap between the SSA's numbers of people and their net compensation, compared to the Census's formulation of how many people are in poverty. How is there a gap of 52 million people in calculating the poverty rate? Can someone point out what's going on? GDP is also higher than median household income, which doesn't take inflation into account. [1] http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-do-americans-earn-in-2015-household-income-wages-real-income-gdp/ http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-do-americans-earn-in-201... [2] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/263/table1.xls https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/263... [3] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-series/historical-poverty-thresholds/thresh17.xls https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-ser... [4] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-26... [5] https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2017 https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2017 [6] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-26... edit: in the Census report (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-263.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...) they mention that you have to adjust all pre-2014 numbers by increasing them by 3.14 percent, due to changes in reporting....

sascha_sl 8y ago
The median Asian income is easily explained - only educated/relatively rich Asians can afford to immigrate. Most immigration is relatively recent (60s to present) so their status hasn't really had time to change a lot.
- jki275 8y ago
  Citation? There are certainly rich Asians who immigrate, but I know plenty of people who immigrated and are absolutely not rich at all. Many Asians who immigrate have little to nothing except an education, some don't even have that. We brought many over during the time frame of the Vietnam war who had nothing at all.
  - sumedh 8y ago
    > Many Asians who immigrate have little to nothing except an education Are Indians included in Asians?
badpun 8y ago
> If you're white. If you're black, the median is $34K. So, only like, 1/3 less. Or if you're asian, the median is $72K. Lol, that single fact makes the "white people oppress everybody else" nonsense fall on its face. I wonder why it's not often used as a rebuttal.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  You're being downvoted, but if you look at a ranking of household income by ethnicity in the U.S., it's pretty clear that you're right. The highest earning ethnic group is Indian Americans. You can make the (terribly convoluted) argument that East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) are somehow white, but there's no getting around the fact that Indians are brown. At least as brown as Mexicans and probably browner (Mexicans tend to be about 40% European ancestry on average). Here's that list for anybody who wants to take a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...

sascha_sl 8y ago

The median Asian income is easily explained - only educated/relatively rich Asians can afford to immigrate. Most immigration is relatively recent (60s to present) so their status hasn't really had time to change a lot.

jki275 8y ago
Citation? There are certainly rich Asians who immigrate, but I know plenty of people who immigrated and are absolutely not rich at all. Many Asians who immigrate have little to nothing except an education, some don't even have that. We brought many over during the time frame of the Vietnam war who had nothing at all.
- sumedh 8y ago
  > Many Asians who immigrate have little to nothing except an education Are Indians included in Asians?

badpun 8y ago

> If you're white. If you're black, the median is $34K. So, only like, 1/3 less. Or if you're asian, the median is $72K. Lol, that single fact makes the "white people oppress everybody else" nonsense fall on its face. I wonder why it's not often used as a rebuttal.

toasterlovin 8y ago
You're being downvoted, but if you look at a ranking of household income by ethnicity in the U.S., it's pretty clear that you're right. The highest earning ethnic group is Indian Americans. You can make the (terribly convoluted) argument that East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) are somehow white, but there's no getting around the fact that Indians are brown. At least as brown as Mexicans and probably browner (Mexicans tend to be about 40% European ancestry on average). Here's that list for anybody who wants to take a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U...