5 ms·

> A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. Inequality is declining by every

by troad 4y ago

> A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. Inequality is declining by every measurable metric in the United States. Edit: To answer the folk naysaying with their ten second Google searches, the income inequality rate has declined between 2007 and 2019(1), helped by a strong wage recovery in the late 2010s. The share of wealth held by the top 10% peaked around 2015 and has declined steadily since. 2022 was a very bad year for equity markets and has hit wealthy households particularly hard. These are all pretty findable and uncontroversial statistics, but unfortunately one political tribe has invested a lot of capital in the notion inequality is inexorably increasing, so there’s a lot of pundit mileage in contorting these stats.(2) Which is sad, because these stats are good news for anyone who truly cares about inequality. (1) I’m book-ending at 2019 because pandemic era macro is weird, and will take us some years to understand. (2) I’m not making a partisan point here - stats are stats, and both political tribes lie endlessly about them when convenient.

andrewprock 4y ago
Over what period of time? Since 1980 there is a clear and dramatic increase in the the concentration of wealth. The pandemic and related problems may have stalled that trend for a time.
- odo1242 4y ago
  (the pandemic has, in fact, made every metric of income/wealth inequality markedly worse)
  - andrewprock 4y ago
    The $600 checks and free vaccine delivery were the major progressive policies I was thinking of. But those were definitely temporary.
7sidedmarble 4y ago
> > A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. > Inequality is declining by every measurable metric in the United States. How would you explain any of these metrics? https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...
- willis936 4y ago
  No not those metrics. The ones Tucker Carlson talks about.
mile3island 4y ago
Nah. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA
- isleyaardvark 4y ago
  While I agree with the general point about inequality increasing, I would never trust any chart from the St. Louis Fed after they did this: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/23/china-military-spending-st-louis-fed-graph/ https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/23/china-military-sp...
GAN_Game 4y ago
The census bureau disagrees - income inequality is increasing, not decreasing https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/2022/demo/p60-276/figure3.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...
- pgodzin 4y ago
  that chart includes a huge market bubble and excludes the subsequent bubble pop
Tiktaalik 4y ago
This doesn't seem to be the case at all from the top two hits of googling inequality america but maybe there's a contrived way to come to any conclusion here. But aside from that a more important metric than inequality is the real material conditions of regular people. In Canada at least rents have been spiking for years on end which is directly reducing people's money on hand, and an inflation crisis is further compounding this issue this year. There's different situations in different US states, but I do not believe the situation is terribly different in many places. Things are getting worse and worse because people have less and less money.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MikeSchurman 4y ago
I'm sure you're correct for a lot of metrics, but to say every metric is declining might be wrong. Homelessness is going up slowly but surely: https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-of-homeless-people-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-... Is this a direct measure of inequality? I suppose it depends but I would say yes?
kashunstva 4y ago
> Inequality is declining by every measurable metric in the United States. Economist Thomas Piketty would like to have a word. The top 1% takes more of the US national income than the entire bottom half and their share is increasing. Income growth in the bottom 20% is negative.[0] Although perhaps we have different definitions of inequality. If the rings of the ladder are pulling apart in this fashion I’m going to take that as evidence of increasing inequality. [0] Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman (2018): _Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States_, Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, 2018, Vol. 133, S. 553-609.
diydsp 4y ago
citations, please.

by troad 4y ago

andrewprock 4y ago

Over what period of time? Since 1980 there is a clear and dramatic increase in the the concentration of wealth. The pandemic and related problems may have stalled that trend for a time.

odo1242 4y ago
(the pandemic has, in fact, made every metric of income/wealth inequality markedly worse)
- andrewprock 4y ago
  The $600 checks and free vaccine delivery were the major progressive policies I was thinking of. But those were definitely temporary.

7sidedmarble 4y ago

> > A lot of this is related to inequality, value of labour detaching from wealth, and the increasing unaffordability of life. > Inequality is declining by every measurable metric in the United States. How would you explain any of these metrics? https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/ https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...

willis936 4y ago
No not those metrics. The ones Tucker Carlson talks about.

mile3island 4y ago

Nah. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SIPOVGINIUSA

isleyaardvark 4y ago
While I agree with the general point about inequality increasing, I would never trust any chart from the St. Louis Fed after they did this: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/23/china-military-spending-st-louis-fed-graph/ https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/01/23/china-military-sp...

GAN_Game 4y ago

The census bureau disagrees - income inequality is increasing, not decreasing https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/2022/demo/p60-276/figure3.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...

pgodzin 4y ago
that chart includes a huge market bubble and excludes the subsequent bubble pop

Tiktaalik 4y ago

This doesn't seem to be the case at all from the top two hits of googling inequality america but maybe there's a contrived way to come to any conclusion here. But aside from that a more important metric than inequality is the real material conditions of regular people. In Canada at least rents have been spiking for years on end which is directly reducing people's money on hand, and an inflation crisis is further compounding this issue this year. There's different situations in different US states, but I do not believe the situation is terribly different in many places. Things are getting worse and worse because people have less and less money.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

MikeSchurman 4y ago

I'm sure you're correct for a lot of metrics, but to say every metric is declining might be wrong. Homelessness is going up slowly but surely: https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-of-homeless-people-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/555795/estimated-number-... Is this a direct measure of inequality? I suppose it depends but I would say yes?

kashunstva 4y ago

> Inequality is declining by every measurable metric in the United States. Economist Thomas Piketty would like to have a word. The top 1% takes more of the US national income than the entire bottom half and their share is increasing. Income growth in the bottom 20% is negative.[0] Although perhaps we have different definitions of inequality. If the rings of the ladder are pulling apart in this fashion I’m going to take that as evidence of increasing inequality. [0] Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman (2018): _Distributional National Accounts: Methods and Estimates for the United States_, Quarterly Journal of Economics 2, 2018, Vol. 133, S. 553-609.

diydsp 4y ago

citations, please.