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We already have the leisure society - the bottom rung of the income distribution (in the US) lives in that society. People below the poverty line in the US work

We already have the leisure society - the bottom rung of the income distribution (in the US) lives in that society. People below the poverty line in the US work very little and have consumption and disposable income (after taxes/transfers) of about $20k/year. http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs.html http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/taxes-and-cliffs... http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2012.pdf I don't know why people refuse to acknowledge that we are already there.

mkr-hn 12y ago
I don't see a claim in those links that people at the bottom rung have $20k in disposable income. I can't imagine they even have $20k a year to begin with. Your claims are very different from my experience living close enough to that bottom rung to know people in it.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  In the second link there is a graph entitled "Disposable Income for a Hypothetical Single Parent with One Child, by Earnings", which doesn't fall below $20k. Of course, it may not be correct to generalize it, and it is incorrect to present it as "per person" since it represents two people - parent and child.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    You can get consumption data from the BLS, which gives similar numbers: http://www.bls.gov/cex/22013/midyear/income.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cex/22013/midyear/income.pdf You'll need to dig in to figure out what a "referent person" is.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Please explain how this supports your figure. I don't see it. Dividing the consumer unit "average annual expenditure" by the "average number of persons per consumer unit" per column there, only the top two exceed $20k, and only the top 3 approach $20k. It does all exceed $10k, but there's still 27 million households spending less than $15k/yr/person - where it would be more correct to say "about $10k" than "about $20k".
      - yummyfajitas 12y ago
        My mistake, I missed the fact that consumer units had multiple people in them. I thought those figures were for individuals.
        dllthomas 12y ago
        Gotcha.
- deleted 12y ago
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mkr-hn 12y ago

I don't see a claim in those links that people at the bottom rung have $20k in disposable income. I can't imagine they even have $20k a year to begin with. Your claims are very different from my experience living close enough to that bottom rung to know people in it.

dllthomas 12y ago
In the second link there is a graph entitled "Disposable Income for a Hypothetical Single Parent with One Child, by Earnings", which doesn't fall below $20k. Of course, it may not be correct to generalize it, and it is incorrect to present it as "per person" since it represents two people - parent and child.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  You can get consumption data from the BLS, which gives similar numbers: http://www.bls.gov/cex/22013/midyear/income.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cex/22013/midyear/income.pdf You'll need to dig in to figure out what a "referent person" is.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Please explain how this supports your figure. I don't see it. Dividing the consumer unit "average annual expenditure" by the "average number of persons per consumer unit" per column there, only the top two exceed $20k, and only the top 3 approach $20k. It does all exceed $10k, but there's still 27 million households spending less than $15k/yr/person - where it would be more correct to say "about $10k" than "about $20k".
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      My mistake, I missed the fact that consumer units had multiple people in them. I thought those figures were for individuals.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        Gotcha.
deleted 12y ago
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