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| 7/12 |
| 2003/9/10 [Politics/Domestic/California, Finance/Investment] UID:10137 Activity:very high |
9/10 http://csua.org/u/492 (news.yahoo.com) Alabama voters suckered into voting down modest tax hike. School programs in jeopardy. Only the rich and middle class would have paid for it but polls showed only mixed support among blacks and lower income voters! This is appalling! I blame the media for this travesty! \_ 19% of Americans think that they are in the top 1% of wage earners and 20% more think that they *will* be in that top 1% within their lifetime... this should help explain why so many Americans like Bush's tax policy (Source: Economist) \_ could you elaborate on where I can find this? \_ I read it in this week's print edition. \_ Wow, I've always thought this sort of thing was true but I've never seen numbers to back it up. What a sorry bunch of delusional wage slaves. \_ Damn, now that I thought about this a little further, that's just pathetic. I believe the top decile is around $80k, correct me if I'm wrong, so there are people that make under $80k that believe they're in the top 1%? \_ You were close, top 20% of households is at $83.5k: http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/h01.html Oops, I actually used real data on the motd? I hope my account doesn't get sorry'd. \_ what do they mean by household income? I make 90k and my hubby makes 80k. does that mean our household income is 170k? \_ Yes, and those numbers would put you in the top 5%, so now you can stick it to the rest of us! (Does anyone have figures for the top 4%, 3%, 2%, 1% so that we can see how, for the lack of a better word, asymptotic it gets?) \_ 90k and 80k doing what? How long does it take to get there? \_ The real question is how to break that barrier. 100k is easy. 200k is much harder. \_ I was making $85k/yr as a sysadmin 5 years out of college. This was the boom years though. \_ so what is the range of gross income for a middle class? $40k-80k? If someone who can afford a $50k car does that qualify him/her as a well off middle class or upper class? \_ http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032002/faminc/new07_000.htm The poverty line is $18k for a family of four, so the bottom of what is the middle class must be much lower, unless you think half of America is "poor." \_ The federal pvoery definition is so out of whack that most social and economics statistics reporting work around with stats like % within n multiples of poverty line. -- ulysses, whose wife writes socioeconomic studies for a living. \_ Fine then, most of America is poor by your very odd definition of it. Look at the tables. 13% of Americans live in families that make below the poverty levels. Most people who live in families with incomes of $25k think of themselves as "middle class", no matter how much self-entitled Cal students and grads would piss and moan at having to survive on it. \_ "866,623 people opposed [it] while 416,310 voted for it" ??? There are roughly 1.3 million people in Alabama? Isn't that a pretty low voter turn out? \_ voter turnout in this country is always low \_ I find this site illuminating: http://www.lcurve.org \_ retarded. or should i say... you are so obviously a fat sysadmin. \- note by the way: you should not just focus on income but wealth also. e.g. i know some modestly paid teacher in the silicon valley who have lived there since the 60 or early 70s and owned millions of dollars in real-estate. note also there are some well-defined groups for whom current income is artificially low. like some law/med/engineering graduate students. does anyone know which congressman suggested changing the exempt amount before the "death taxes" kicked in to $100m to shut up the people talking about the farmers and small business owners? |
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| csua.org/u/492 -> story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030910/ap_on_re_us/alabama_taxes_16 Yahoo! News - Page Not Found. News Home - Yahoo! Yahoo! News. Search. Document Not Found The document you requested is not found. It may have expired. Try these links: Yahoo! News home page Yahoo! Copyright 2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. |
| www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/h01.html Historical Income Tables - Households Historical Income Tables - Households Table H-1. Income Limits for Each Fifth and Top 5 Percent of Households All Races: 1967 to 2001 Households as of March of the following year. Income in current and 2001 CPI-U-RS adjusted dollars28/ - Lower limit of Upper limit of each fifth dollars top 5 Number - percent Year thous. Lowest Second Third Fourth dollars - Current Dollars 2001 109,297 $17,970 $33,314 $53,000 $83,500 $150,499 2000 30/ 108,209 17,920 33,000 52,174 81,766 145,220 2000 29/ 106,418 17,955 33,006 52,272 81,960 145,526 1999 104,705 17,196 32,000 50,520 79,375 142,021 1998 103,874 16,116 30,408 48,337 75,000 132,199 1997 102,528 15,400 29,200 46,000 71,500 126,550 1996 101,018 14,768 27,760 44,006 68,015 119,540 1995 25/ 99,627 14,400 26,914 42,002 65,124 113,000 1994 24/ 98,990 13,426 25,200 40,100 62,841 109,821 1993 23/ 97,107 12,967 24,679 38,793 60,300 104,639 1992 22/ 96,426 12,600 24,140 37,900 58,007 99,020 1991 95,669 12,588 24,000 37,070 56,760 96,400 1990 94,312 12,500 23,662 36,200 55,205 94,748 1989 93,347 12,096 23,000 35,350 53,710 91,750 1988 92,830 11,382 21,500 33,506 50,593 85,640 1987 21/ 91,124 10,800 20,500 32,000 48,363 80,928 1986 89,479 10,358 19,783 30,555 46,120 78,226 1985 20/ 88,458 10,000 18,852 29,022 43,809 73,263 1984 86,789 9,600 17,904 27,506 41,600 69,590 1983 19/ 85,290 9,000 16,773 25,718 38,898 64,600 1982 83,918 8,520 16,010 24,560 36,670 61,107 1981 83,527 8,160 15,034 23,396 34,600 56,300 1980 82,368 7,556 14,100 21,610 31,700 51,500 1979 18/ 80,776 7,009 13,035 20,025 29,097 47,465 1978 77,330 6,384 12,000 18,146 26,425 42,572 1977 76,030 5,813 10,900 16,531 24,100 38,961 1976 17/ 74,142 5,479 10,133 15,423 22,192 35,382 1975 16/ 72,867 5,025 9,450 14,246 20,496 32,681 1974 16/15/ 71,163 4,923 9,094 13,400 19,453 31,085 1973 69,859 4,418 8,393 12,450 17,985 28,509 1972 14/ 68,251 4,050 7,800 11,530 16,500 26,560 1971 13/ 66,676 3,800 7,244 10,660 15,200 24,138 1970 64,778 3,687 7,064 10,276 14,661 23,178 1969 63,401 3,574 6,860 9,920 13,900 21,800 1968 62,214 3,323 6,300 9,030 12,688 19,850 1967 12/ 60,813 3,000 5,850 8,306 11,841 19,000 Table H-1. Income Limits for Each Fifth and Top 5 Percent of Households All Races: 1967 to 2001 Households as of March of the following year. Income in current and 2001 CPI-U-RS adjusted dollars28/ - Lower limit of Upper limit of each fifth dollars top 5 Number - percent Year thous. |
| ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032002/faminc/new07_000.htm Income Distribution to $250,000 or More for Families: 2001 Source: Current Population Survey, March 2002. |
| www.lcurve.org -> www.lcurve.org/ Think of the L-Curve when you read your daily news I hope you do READ your daily news rather than rely on the TV infotainment that masquerades as news. What are its implications for tax structures, campaign finance reform, the policies of the IMF, the WTO, and the World Bank, abandonment of inner cities, factory closings, sweatshop labor, guest worker programs, US foreign policy, why we go to war, etc. Should the goal be to get motivated and get yourself onto the vertical spike? Some people who have responded to this site see it this way, but I think that misses the point. I saw a bumper sticker recently that says it best for me: Our economy produces tremendous wealth but it also produces tremendous poverty. Sure, some people can be lazy, but when large numbers of hard working people live in poverty and the middle class is shrinking, it is a systemic , not an individual problem. It goes to the top, and leaves the masses to fight over the crumbs. True, it has been this way through the ages, but that doesnt mean we should be satisfied with such a system. Some doctors and lawyers and professional people, with incomes of a few hundred thousand dollars may feel rich. They may have nicer homes and cars, and they may have attitudes that separate them from the masses. But they still must work for a living and are primarily consumers of their earnings. Whether they recognize it or not, they actually have more in common with the people at the bottom than they do with the people in the top 1/2. Can democracy meaningfully exist where the distribution of wealth, and thus the distribution of power, is this concentrated? We recently went through an economic boom where people on the horizontal spike showed little if any improvement in their condition while those in the vertical spike showed huge gains. Do we really want to gear up our national policies to repeat this performance? Those in the vertical spike would like to have you resent the poor who are portrayed as welfare leeches. Which group actually has a bigger negative impact on your lifestyle: the people in the bottom half of the graph, or the people in the vertical spike? In 1997 over 144,000 tax returns were filed with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more. As the vertical spike rises it thins down to a few individuals, but there is a growing class of billionaires that collectively holds a substantial fraction of the wealth of the country. People on the vertical spike can use their influence single-mindedly and very effectively. A single billionaire can get the undivided attention of any politician he wants, any time he wants. If he doesnt get what he wants he can, in fact , fight city hall, the statehouse, and even the federal government. People on the horizontal spike must pool their limited individual power and organize to have any effect at all. The mainstream media has been bought up by people in the vertical spike. The primary channels for information and expressed opinion are controlled and filtered by a small, powerful group on the vertical spike whose interests are not representative of the majority of Americans. Even when there is no direct political message the programming is tailored to the perspectives and sensitivities of large corporations. Programming is simply the hook to hold an audience until the next commercial. Serious examination of ideas of any kind is seen as counterproductive because it may alienate or bore part of the potential audience. The growing media monopoly dilutes and distorts the national dialog, and thereby destroys the basis for democracy. We must find ways to rebuild community and learn to talk to each other directly . When taxes are cut, whose taxes are cut and whose programs are cut? What kinds of taxes are being cut and what kinds of taxes whether they are called taxes or not are being imposed? The pre-Reagan progressive income tax drew more from the vertical spike. Simplification is unrelated to the issue of who the money is coming from. You could have a simple progressive tax just as easily as a simple flat tax. The proposal to eliminate the income tax entirely would be disastrous. Those on the vertical spike would escape virtually all of their obligations and the burden of government would be born almost entirely by those of us on the horizontal spike, both through increases in other forms of taxation and reduction of services. This is the direction tax reform needs to take if it is to be truly considered reform. Can the people on the horizontal spike take control of their own destinies and truly make this a nation governed in the best interests of the people? The economy is a complex system, but it is essentially a human invention. If it is not managed intentionally, then it is managed or manipulated by those who hold political and economic power, typically to their own advantage. It is just as important to ask how the benefits of the economy are distributed through the population . A truly democratic society needs to find ways to manage the economy to benefit the population as a whole. Links to Related Sites Data sources: Census Bureau / Internal Revenue Service / Economic Policy Institute Note: these data sources are notably lacking in data within the top 1. Census data goes up to $300,000 and IRS data goes up to $1 million. Information to plot the vertical spike had to be obtained from news articles and other sources of commentary. If information on the top 1 is not known or easily obtained, statements about the socioeconomics of income and wealth are suspect. Michael Parenti has written an illuminating article on this topic. Since I first posted this site, several people have quibbled over various technical points. Here are a few of the issues raised: Increase in net worth is not the same thing as income, according to one reader. However, I recently received a comment from economist John Maher who wrote, I believe the first readers comment is incorrect. Increase in net worth IS income according to the renowned economist, John R. The income of very wealthy people typically varies radically from one year to the next. Sometimes years of huge earnings are followed by years with similarly huge losses. I have added a comment to this effect in the main body of the text above. Those of us on the horizontal spike, however, find radical jumps in income much harder to achieve. The published wealth of billionaires is typically estimated by their holdings in their own companies. These estimates do not included their typically vast diversified investments. Income on paper, from growth of investments, needs to be distinguished from taxable income. Its true that there are differences among different kinds of income, so they arent strictly comparable, but political and economic power derives from wealth, whether it is taxable or not. My response to all of these kinds of questions, in short, is that the truth of my central thesis is not dependent on the exact height of the graph or shadings of definitions. As one correspondent put it, there is a money spike and there is a population spike . One class derives concentrated power from its concentrated wealth. That power is effective only to the extent that it can be mobilized through organization. |
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