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Let’s take a look at income (not wealth) The US has a GDP per capita of $80K, so if it were distributed equally, everyone would “get” $80K. Since in reality th
by andruby 3y ago
Let’s take a look at income (not wealth)
The US has a GDP per capita of $80K, so if it were distributed equally, everyone would “get” $80K. Since in reality the distribution is very skewed a lot of people would earn more.
Of course, that’s if we artificially constrain this to the US. The world-wide GDP per capita is only $12K. So if we’d be really equitable with the whole world, we’d all have to make do with a lot less.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> The US has a GDP per capita of $80K, so if it were distributed equally, everyone would “get” $80K Pedantically, you actually want GNI, not GDP, here. (But they are close enough in practice for the US–and identical on a worldwide basis since there is no foreign income—that it doesn’t materially change anything else in your comment.)
- Iulioh 3y agoThat is just math and does not account of what this would cause to the economy. Is the same old discourse, if poor people get more money they will put it back in the economy and consume it generating a bigger economy and better life quality for everyone. And gdp is kindaaaa useless as wealth pays an important role. Economic inequality in income grew since the 80' and that's simply a fact
- andruby 3y agoOf course. Afaik there are no numbers we could use to estimate the effect on GDP of such redistribution. We could indeed hypothesize that GDP would increase due to poorer people having more to spend. On the other hand, in this scenario the successful business owners no longer earn outsized reward for their risk, so perhaps entrepreneurship and innovation is stumped. It’s very hard to predict the effect on GDP