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Including Illegal Activity in the U.S. National Economic Accounts [pdf]
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoHere’s similar information from the Australian Bureau of Statistics The Non-Observed Economy and Australia's GDP, 2012 - Measuring Illegal Production https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/5204.0.55.008~2012~Main+Features~Measuring+Illegal+Production?OpenDocument https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/5204.0.55....
- joncrane 7y agoIt would be interesting to see the proportion of legal to illegal economic activity over time.
- rayiner 7y agoThe chart of illegal drug expenditures as a percentage of average person consumption is wild. People did a lot of drugs in the 1970s and 1980. “In total, this paper calculates that illegal drugs accounted for 5 percent of total PCE in 1980. This high expenditure share is consistent with contemporaneous reports. For example, a Washington Post article estimated that Americans bought $35 billion of cocaine (O’Toole 1981).” That figure has fallen to under 1% today. Maybe the war on drugs worked.
- wyxuan 7y agoMaybe, maybe not; cuz drugs have gotten cheaper, and there are how “legitimate sources” of drugs like opiates
- hi5eyes 7y agoopiates, percs, xans are blatantly the biggest part of youth culture rn "the war on drugs worked" lmaoooooo
- topkai22 7y agoThe data isn't there- survey data is showing declining use of prescription drugs abuse, and even what it does show is around 15% of the 12th grade population having ever abused prescription drugs, with less than 5% having used in the last month. See: https://www.drugabuse.gov/trends-statistics/monitoring-future/monitoring-future-study-trends-in-prevalence-various-drugs https://www.drugabuse.gov/trends-statistics/monitoring-futur... People in social groups that routinely use drugs tend to over estimate their prevalence in society at large. Even weed is below 50% lifetime use and 20% monthly use for 12th graders. I'd argue fortnite is a bigger part of youth culture than opiates.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago20% of youth seems like a huge number to me. What percent do you think play Fortnite?
- topkai22 7y agoI said opiate use not Marijuana, which is around 5% monthly use. I'll easily concede Marijuana and alcohol use are major parts of youth culture, although again but as big as people using them think (which I didn't believe in high school / college either). As for Fortnite share- there are ~76 million unique fortnite players in a month and supposedly 40-60% of them are between 18-24. I'm going to go with the low number. I have no good data on Fortnite play by country other than its popular in the USA and parts of Europe, but not in Asia, so I'll just say that 1/6 of the players live in the USA (again, probably pretty conservative). There are roughly 25 million 18-24 year olds in the US. So we get 76M*.4/6 = 5M for the number of monthly US fortnite players in the US, or roughly 20% of the population in question. A lot more than opioid users, roughly the same as reported marijuana use, and a lot less than alcohol use.
- wheels 7y agoI've often wondered how this should be dealt with in countries (specifically thinking of Eastern Europe) where large potions of the economy are off the books. I've assumed it would significantly skew GDP / GDP per capita figures if such values were included, and wondered how it would affect general quality of life indicators in places where even engineers often work in the unreported economy.
- AmericanChopper 7y agoOr even countries where the USD or Euros are commonly used unofficially.
- H8crilA 7y agoAdding grey zone activity to GDP numbers a great trick to increase the available govt debt ceiling without compromising the debt/GDP % numbers. I'm wondering if the US will do the same, given how large the deficit already is.
- hurricanetc 7y agoNeither party in the US actually care about the debt or deficit. If we add illicit activity into the GDP it will be so that whoever is President can claim more GDP growth.
- wincy 7y agoI’ve heard it speculated that if we accurately accounted for hidden wealth obtained illegally that Vladimir Putin is actually the richest man in the world. https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2019/12/is-vladimir-putin-the-richest-person-in-the-world/ https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2019/12/is-vladimir...
- bb2018 7y agoAdjacent to this, has anyone ever seen statistics/estimates on income percentiles of illegal/underreported income? I've always wondered about this as a huge portion of jobs is based off tips or cash transactions (servers, contractors, maids, landscapers) and I can't imagine all these people report 100% of their income. What percent of of the US population would you estimate doesn't report at least 10 thousand dollars a year?
- jimbob45 7y agoThe standard deduction removes this as a concern for most Americans.
- susijdjdjxa 7y agoI don’t understand, can you elaborate? Hiding some of your income reduces your tax paid regardless of whether you take the standard deduction.
- mandelbrotwurst 7y agoWell, unless you actually earn an amount that is less than the standard deduction, in which case you gain nothing by hiding those earnings, or if you actually earn only slightly more than the standard deduction, then you only gain slightly. That said, I think the person you're replying to is mostly wrong since most American do more than the standard deduction several times over.
- topkai22 7y agoThe standard deduction doesn't help for social security and Medicare tax.
- bb2018 7y agoI'm a really naive when it comes to tax law and a lot of economics statistics - but I'm having trouble seeing this. If I am a waiter who made 35,000 in reported income and 10,000 in unreported income I made 45,000. I can take the standard deduction on 35,000 and in all statistics used by think tanks/reporters/politicians I will weight in the category of those who made ~35,000. Am I missing something?
- netsharc 7y agoWhen Italy started including this stuff in their economic report, the joke was that the change happened to make their economic numbers look better...
- iudqnolq 7y agoHow could it not? Supposing illegal activity exists, including it will increase GDP. GDP per capita could decrease if you suddenly count people you'd missed, I suppose, but I doubt that that'd be significant.
- seibelj 7y agoI almost always tip in cash, and I frequent the same places so the service employees learn who I am. And they love my cash tips! You will get better service if you leave a $5 bill in cash rather than credit. Every bit helps.
- tonyedgecombe 7y agoSo you think people who receive part of their pay in cash should be taxed less than people who don't?
- esotericn 7y agoPresumably they think that everyone should be taxed less, but that this approximation is the best they can do.
- mulmen 7y agoI don't follow, are you implying the cash tip is going unreported?
- bargle0 7y agoThe BEA is an interesting little bureau. They have to resist a lot of pressure both from politicians and law enforcement.
- wbl 7y agoThe most amusing part is stagflation disappears when coke is included.