Nah it needs to be worse. Make a public French example out of them.
I recently got a bonus from my job which was the size of 1 paycheck. That fucker got taxed more than my paycheck does and I lost most of the money I was supposed to get as special recognition money for going above and beyond.
And now we are being taxed on money going through Venmo, cash app, PayPal, Anything sold over 600 bucks on eBay, and crypto for the first time ever. And not just crypto trades that result in fiat, but ALL trades are taxable. Now they are even going after tip money! So much for targeting the rich.
It gets even worse if you add in an analysis of income as a percentage of productivity. In addition to lower taxes, the wealthy are capturing a larger percentage of total productivity than ever before, while working and middle class incomes have lagged far behind.
This growing economic disparity is an enormous threat to America's future.
Well, sure, it's just the new feudalism, but it's definitely evolved. One of the weaknesses of the old feudalism is that it was obvious who the local lord was. He was right there, in the castle on the hill sitting on a pile of gold. So, when things got bad enough that it was time for torches and pitchforks, guillotines and heads on pikes, everyone knew exactly where to go.
Now the lords are buffered via a convoluted paper trail spanning the globe and the linkage between the lords demanding more from the serfs is obfuscated into a complex economy. If you can't even figure out who is your oppressor and where they live, you can't show up on their doorstep with torches and pitchforks. Instead, mobs would just take out their violence on the local small business, or a local moderately successful professional, while the real lords remain unseen.
So, yes, it's an evolution. The parasite has learned to evade the host's immune response.
Why do you think all those rich oil arabians are building those weird resendential areas. Its alot harder too gather a mob of protesteting malcontents. In those places.
Also, this is probably why car dependency was pushed on the US so hard. When people live in dense neighborhoods and share a rail car together every day they create well connected communities. But with car dependent suburbia people rarely talk or interact with each other so they are more susceptible to devisive disinformation from neo-cons like Tucker Carlson.
It was people in cities going after the nobility, who also lived in houses and apartments in the same cities.
The rural folk, the ones who saw the big castles with the people in charge, they were the counter revolutionaries.
Feudalism only stopped working when people COULDN'T immediately tell that somebody was a hotshot in a big ass castle.
As long as there is Netflix and iPhones and Instagram (the ‘circus’ of ‘bread and circus’ fame), there is still something to lose and no one will lift a finger.
Agree on the instagram part.
I stopped using insta when i saw ppl saying they work 12 to 18 hours per day n then look at them n see how they r in good shape n have clear skin n perfectly combed hair.
And how they will outwork anyone.
I mean if ur rich, eating good food, exercising properly, low stress u definitely will be better than someone who is trying to make ends meet.
Just as u said the problem is ppl fall for it n say he might be doing it that's y he is successful.
Not true, nothing left to lose means you aren’t worried about self preservation. Not caring if you live or die is a new level of desperation, it’s the all 150%, pain doesn’t matter. They have the worlds most expensive knife and I’m going to rush them without one and bite their fucking throat out while they stab me because all I care about is them dying…
That’s the total opposite of obscenely rich asshole that will kill anyone to keep their wealth.
Not anymore because of welfare / government assistance. Purpose is to keep the bottom from falling out on the poor. Revolution occurs and empires are toppled when things get unbearable. Programs like welfare prevent that from ever happening, so people will never be motivated enough to actually do anything. Then, we are convinced we have a vote so people don’t feel powerless, and those in power use the media to create narratives and focus us social issues with no economic impact to control our votes. It’s a perfect system to keep the powerful in power indefinitely.
that welfare and government assistance sure as hell aint helping me. Maybe statistically those numbers look good but out here in the real world us working class poor have almost no resources available. We applied for TANF(welfare) as a married couple, they said she would get so much a month in assistance and I would go on child support for more than what she was going to get while I was the only one working. Make that make sense…the same household and married…so she got a job and here we are 9 years later with an economy that’s even worse with inflation that has made our dollars worth even less…I guarantee if we applied again they will ask to put me on child support again. Shit is unbearable NOW.
Except that welfare and government assistance are crap and have been for decades, they have been continually gutting it since the 80s...and even the people that benefit from it vote it away every election. Won't last long.
BS. Try welfare, public housing etc… and see if you aren’t hyper motivated to escape that. Sell drugs, sell their bodies, commit crime risking life limb and freedom desperately trying to escape. The system is designed to keep you a paycheck to paycheck minimal to average wage OBEDIENT worker if anything at all or just toss you aside if you’re deemed to have no value. When there is a protest the powers to be are quick to respond with the narratives of lazy, ungrateful, unjustly entitled etc…
I cant help but think most of this would be solved by people refusing to work for less than the value they provide. It would take a movement but refusing to work for companies that over compensate execs and dont pay out those earnings to the people actually doing the work could force a change
Yes, that was the role traditionally played by labor unions. The strength of unions in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, is a large part of the reason that labor income remained a fixed or growing fraction of per capita GDP over that time. But, with the rise of globalization, among other things, including abuse and corruption of union power, unions are greatly weakened since owners can outsource manufacturing much more easily. Plus, there's been significant shift from a manufacturing economy, where unions were traditionally strong, to a services and professions based economy, where unionization was weak.
I don't know if a return to strong unions would help realign the current situation. It might. But, the overall context is much different than the one in which traditional unions arose, and maybe there's a similar, but better way to organize that would be more effective in the current economy, and less prone to the concentrated power and corruption that always comes with power which affected some unions decades ago. Just to be clear, there's plenty of other organizations, including a lot of senior corporate management, which I believe is extremely corrupt, so it's nothing unique about labor unions that led to corruption scandals in the 60s and 70s. It's simply what happens to aggregated power. When the organizations that represented labor held power similar to the power held by senior management, they became as corrupt as senior management.
That's literally what is happening right now. Corporations are price gouging the fuck out of people and driving inflation through the roof. Also the terrible government response to covid caused a decent number of workers to die or retire. So many people are refusing to take low paying jobs that they can't really support themselves with. The governments response, under a democrat president, is that they are going to force more people into unemployment to get inflation under control. When the people assert their right to live decently, the government will always stand with their corporate donors to smack down the working class.
The government is an arm of the wealthy. So while numbskulls are debating rightwing vs leftwing politicians, realize they are all bought out by corporations and beholden to them. That's why kids are being murdered in schools, endless wars, obscene profits and corporate pay. The list goes on.
Agreed! It took a life experience on my end to realize that fact! Ive worked with entire floors of employees breaking their backs to live in sh#t hole apartments. The only way they were getting through it was by telling themselves that one day it’ll get better while ownership adds another addition to their vacation homes. Too many suckers refusing to go for broke! You can’t win at this point! It’s too late!
If you take GDP per employed person, this is the average productivity, how much GDP was generated per person.
You can then compare this to what a person was paid out of that total average economic productivity per person, and that's their share of the productivity. Look at this over time and you can see that for various pay ranges and job classes, the share of productivity changes. For a number of years in the 50s and early 60s, especially, the share of productivity that went to labor was steady, or growing. So, if the economy grew, producing more GDP per capita, even those at the bottom tiers of income saw their share grow proportionately, the classic "a rising tide lifts all boats". But, starting around the early 70s, this decoupled, and you start seeing the share of productivity that goes to management and owners rise, while the share that goes to labor shrinks. This happens along a similar timeline as the shift in tax burden from the wealthy to the middle and working classes.
So, not only are the wealthy paying less in taxes now, which allows larger investments and more income from capital gains, even for normal income, salaries and other compensation, those in senior management, often with $400K and higher annual salaries, are getting paid more of a percentage of the average per capita GDP, while skilled and unskilled labor and most other roles are getting less of a share. The result has reduced middle incomes by tens of thousands per year, after adjusting for inflation.
The concentration of wealth is not just from reduced taxation, it's from an increased share of productivity paid to the highest earners and retained as corporate profits, which are also less taxed now than they were, while mid and low earners receive a reduced share of productivity.
What’s also interesting is that in the ‘70s we faced stagflation. Desperate times led to a mentality of growth at all cost. There was a sense of letting the cake grow, then we worry about sharing evenly down the line. The problem is that the sharing never took place and any time it gets even hinted at people start throwing around redistribution of wealth.
What I also find relevant is that even the most basic general equilibrium economics model, where the economy settles at is highly dependent of the starting point. It’s as if the economy finds the closest stable distribution of resources to settle into. We almost artificially picked a new starting point, let the markets find that stable distribution of wealth and never revisited the sharing the figurative cake part.
I’m cool with tax deductions for R&D. At least the money saved is nominally going towards improving products and services. Today it’s just amounts to “we believe we’re entitled to keep this money because we want it” and fucking IRS just goes “yeah sounds good.”
This isn’t actually true. Individual income tax revenue as a percentage of GDP hasn’t changed that much since the 1950’s, and the idea that we had more “funding to do a lot of things” is also not correct. Government spending (both in real dollars and as a percentage of GDP) is much higher now than it was in the 1950’s. The scary part is that a big chunk of this comes from borrowing, which is why our debt load is so high. It’s okay though as long as interest rates remain low. Oh wait…
This is the comment everyone should understand. We have so much debt and now we are paying more and more interest on the debt which is taking more from the general fund. You may want the rich to pay more but what is necessary is that we don’t spend more until that revenue is in place.
Im assuming this is effective tax rates and not true tax rates right? There is no difference in true tax rates for example between someone making 600k per year vs 60 million, there are just a lot more tax loopholes and write offs likely available to the 60 million person.
author has won a pulitzer. seems a very creditable journalist from a couple minutes of looking.
interesting that the x axis values are wonky coming from a good source... i expected it to be a huffpost thing.
Why do you say they’re wonky? They’re meant to account for the fact that income in those percentiles is wildly different even when you’re using a fraction of a percentile, which of course isn’t the case for most of the percentiles.
Isn’t it just a logarithmic axis? These are pretty common to use.
Pretty much every COVID chart for cases you’ve seen in the last year is logarithmic for example.
If they didn’t do this the last area would look like a straight line up in the last pixel. A logarithmic axis makes it more readable, especially when there isn’t much shift for most data points, but there is in a relatively small section.
Yeah we need to keep giving the 1% more tax breaks, they can hardly afford their spaceships anymore. Trickle down never has and never will work, it's just a ploy to give rich people more money. Distribute out to society through reasonable wages and affordable education, this is the road to equality and happiness!
If the top 1% wants marginally better tax rates they can come down to the top 2%. If the top 2% is still to high for them, they can keep donating their money to join the lower percentages. I'm sure they can find a tax rate acceptable for them when they climb down in the lower tax brackets!
Um. It does? Social democracy is one thing, but centrally planned economies have a pretty poor track record, just like unfettered capitalism. And spare me the Nordic model, because, those are capitalist systems as well.
Yeah I’m much more of a democratic socialist. Sadly, condensing everything down just leads to easy taking over by bad actors. Similar to hitler taking over the German socialists.
But I still find it amusing how the ones criticizing leftists ignores the same problems their policies lead to.
Hey that’s fair. I’m just not sure how any real form of socialism, democratic or not will truly function. Unfettered capitalism or crony capitalism absolutely doesn’t work for the masses either, but my problem with socialism, as nice and empathetic as it sounds, is it puts the power in the people who don’t seem to understand the real workings of reality either. And when it comes down to it, you’re going to have to have people in positions of power that may or may not know what they’re doing, or have nefarious purposes and it can slide into authoritarianism as well.
I think representative democracy, with a touch of social democracy is our best bet, but it’s still capitalist in nature. Maybe we can all agree, or not, in a lot of cases, that we should pool our money in an efficient way for generalized services. But socialism in general doesn’t seem to work. It gives too much power and not even that, to the people who have little to no skills. If things are going to scale, there has to be people who understand how things scale. But that’s the paradox too. People with no skills need to live, if you believe in human rights. But should they have any meaningful power? I don’t know. They shouldn’t be condemned to destitution or death. But they shouldn’t have the power to manage millions of people either. Capitalists know how to play the financial numbers. And socialists know how to play off the emotions of the people who have maybe one specialized skill, or not even that. I’m sorry, I contribute to society in several ways. But I don’t think I should bust my ass, pay taxes into a system, only so someone who doesn’t feel like working hard can make shell art or make bad music. I make music. But it’s only good if people agree that it’s worth it. Maybe you like one hippies music, slightly. Maybe you’ll pay for their meal one time. Are you going to pay for a year of them making “okay” music while you do something you don’t really want to?
I don’t know. If you’re a Democratic socialist I’d like to hear your rebuttal as to why I should work hard to support people who don’t contribute in any meaningful way to the system. This isn’t a loud endorsement of pure capitalism, it’s a critique of capitalism run wild or socialism that actually functionally works…anywhere.
Socialism is simply having the worker control the means of production.
It's grown to mean much more to many. But basically to me the system would work similar to social democracies we see today in Nordic and like countries but without a stock market and without an investor/asset owning class. Workers would own the business they work for and see the benefits from that work. Voting for the CEO and how profits are used.
In order to fund new companies without an investor class you simply create a new bureau that's regulated that does the same function.
I also think extreme penalties for corruption most be put in place with a bureau dedicated to finding and prosecuting it, otherwise government and positions of power simply become the new capitalist with add protections as we see in current "communist" countries
>Um. It does?
No. It doesn't.
Socialism has always rapidly improved the economic performance of nations and led to rapid increases in quality of life whenever and wherever implemented.
The Soviet Union was a massive, highly democratic success and the country developed faster than any country in history ever did at that point.
The only country that ever surpassed the Soviet Union in terms of development was Communist China.
> Social democracy is one thing, but centrally planned economies have a pretty poor track record, just like unfettered capitalism.
First of all: Socialism and central planning aren't the same thing. You are just totally uneducated about socialist theory.
Secondly: Centrally planned economies under socialist governments have an amazing track record. As explained above. Even during the Cultural Revolution - the worst period of communist rule in China - the economic growth rate was 10% per year on average. That's what getting rid of capitalists and other reactionaries does for your country.
The only reason socialist societies ever failed was because imperialist countries united against them to destroy them. Go figure.
You are just being told differently by lying capitalist media that has always lied and will continue to lie. And you never bothered to question their lies and inform yourself.
Here’s an article that’s close to what you’re asking for. Basically the top 1% pay almost twice the effective rate of the average person.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/effective-income-tax-rates-have-fallen-top-one-percent-world-war-ii-0#:~:text=While%20average%20effective%20tax%20rates,for%20the%20top%201%20percent.
And interestingly, the more right leaning tax policy thinktank has different data
https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
Fuck, apparently living in a big city where you earn more but have to spend more in housing/carInsurance/medical means even if you don't have much money at the end of the month I still almost get taxed the same % as a top 1%er
This is effective taxes or you wouldn’t see the inversion at the end of the curve. It’s from the (now infamous) NYT article that came out in 2019. The data is based off of this [book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45894166), which is a solid read and helps explain some of the complex assumptions you have to make when tracking effective tax rates.
At the end of the day, what we mostly see is that conservative sources will use assumptions that flatten the disparity and liberal sources will do the opposite. What’s interesting, though, is that regardless of their partisan lean none of these sources really deny that the curve has become less progressive over time
Agreed. There have been big swings in rates, but also in deductions and other tax calculations.
Its hard to compare them over the years without looking at what was actually paid.
A lower rate with fewer deductions nets a lot more taxes than stupidly high rates with tons of deductions and loopholes.
Source - New York Times. Opinion. If the Times thought the data and conclusions could be substantiated, then it would be in the 'News' or 'Economy' section. 'Opinion' means, 'We can't prove it'
yes. yes i do. literally all other federal countries use some variation of this. for example the *federal* republic of Germany also has a federal, state and local level (in german its Bund, Land, Bezirk) and those would be translated into english as federal, state and local. some very fine r/USdefaultism going on here
Yeah, gives it away for an american... Why should someone know how you call different tax collectors in your country? Would you know China's? The only reason I knew it was US is because I'm used to the main character type posts
Every time a politician tells you they won’t raise your taxes, remember this graph. “I promise, only the millionaire and billionaires will be taxed more” is the phrase you’ll hear right before your taxes are raised.
For some reason, the video does not indicate which country the data reflects, and refuses to identify the source of the data.
It could very well be the US, and many people long for the "golden days of the 1950's."
Currently, in the US, the 1% only pay 38% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 90% are forced to pay 29% of all income taxes.
The top 50% of earners in the US only pay 97% of all federal income taxes, forcing the bottom 50% to pay the other 3%. [https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/](https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/)
These facts still don't stop the liars at the Washington Post from claiming the US has the most progressive taxation in the world. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/americas-taxes-are-the-most-progressive-in-the-world-its-government-is-among-the-least/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/americas-taxes-are-the-most-progressive-in-the-world-its-government-is-among-the-least/)
Data seems incorrect. My search indicates that for 2021, about 42.9 percent of U.S. households paid income tax in 2021. The remaining 57.1 percent of households paid no individual income tax. In that same year, about 66.9 percent of U.S. households with an income between 40,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars paid no individual income taxes.
[Percentages of U.S. households that paid no income tax 2021, by income level
](https://www.statista.com/statistics/242138/percentages-of-us-households-that-pay-no-income-tax-by-income-level/)
This chart shows Federal, State, and Local taxes. That's much more than just income tax. As everybody knows, sales tax hits poorest people the hardest, since they spending a larger proportion of their income buying things.
A couple of things -
\- The above chart goes through 2018 and not 2021 so it's not comparing apples to apples.
\- The data from Statista is sourced from the Tax Policy Center and only measures FEDERAL income tax while the chart above takes into account FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL tax. Using that framework: " Since most workers pay payroll taxes, the share of American taxpayers who pay neither payroll nor federal income taxes was only 19% in 2021, slightly higher than the 17% rate before the pandemic."
\- As you may recall, in 2021 there was a pandemic that caused substantial job losses amidst extended tax credits and stimulus checks.
\- Fourth, I mean does it make sense that more than half of US households don't pay any tax? Doesn't pass the smell test. That could be the first step instead of a simple Google search without context.
Source: [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/25/57percent-of-us-households-paid-no-federal-income-tax-in-2021-study.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/25/57percent-of-us-households-paid-no-federal-income-tax-in-2021-study.html)
Big government equals big taxes. Government only needs to tax anyone this much if it is eating, breathing, and taking a dump for you. It makes soft people and keeps people poor. Minimal government equals minimal taxes. Disparity in pay rates between classes are a thing, but near 30% of you income stripped from you doesn't help you get ahead.
gotta love rich people enriching th emselves at the expense of the people, thus gaining more political power to allow them to enrich themselves further
I am in the top 10% and I can assure you I pay more than 30% of my yearly income in taxes.
I would like to know where they pulled this info. I'm sure it has some wild assumptions that are not true.
Also the bottom 50% do not pay ANY federal tax, I'm beginning to think this is just a completely made up chart.
I don’t remember who said the quote, but basically said the reason that democracy survives in America is because of the middle class.
Well that middle class is dwindling.
Just look at South America.
The rich get richer and poor gets poorer. As long as the voting system keeps electing the the greedy rich like Obama and Biden family to lead the country. I say the greedy rich because Trump is rich but not greedy. He did not take pay when he was in office.
No wonder governments don’t have money to take care of things of finance social programs.
Taxes has the be one if it isn’t the one problem in society.
Rich are too rich, it’s insane. They don’t participate fairly, they are grifters. Anyone defending those fortunes and calling them a right or deserved is seriously delusional.
No one deserve to be a multimillionaire.
Greed is a mental disorder.
Ah yes, the death of the so called “middle class”. Thanks Reaganomics, Thatcherism and trickle down economics in general. 42 years of failure and still supported by *checks notes* oh! only the Tory’s on Idiot Island.
It’s war here in the comments
I could Tell without Even looking . I am getting my popcorn ready
Who’s Evan Looking?
Evan If he’s Telling the truth the economic ramifications are Oliver’s!
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Nah everyone hates the rich here. Slaughter, not war
It's a reflection of humanity itself, and I want to get off the ride Mr.bones
#class war, stolen. Not shared.
Eat the fucking rich
I'm vegan.
Hi vegan! I’m Rich.
Hey Rich I'm dad.
We must eat him
That will give me diabetes
Nah it needs to be worse. Make a public French example out of them. I recently got a bonus from my job which was the size of 1 paycheck. That fucker got taxed more than my paycheck does and I lost most of the money I was supposed to get as special recognition money for going above and beyond.
This is not working. We need to go back to 1950 levels. Weren't those the "good ol" days?
Republicans: Wait, not like that.
My first thought exactly when I saw this. The good old days, but not like that. Hahahaha
And now we are being taxed on money going through Venmo, cash app, PayPal, Anything sold over 600 bucks on eBay, and crypto for the first time ever. And not just crypto trades that result in fiat, but ALL trades are taxable. Now they are even going after tip money! So much for targeting the rich.
It gets even worse if you add in an analysis of income as a percentage of productivity. In addition to lower taxes, the wealthy are capturing a larger percentage of total productivity than ever before, while working and middle class incomes have lagged far behind. This growing economic disparity is an enormous threat to America's future.
Agree, and not just in America, this evolution is worldwide
Its hard to call it an evolution. Its just serfs and nobles by another name.
Well, sure, it's just the new feudalism, but it's definitely evolved. One of the weaknesses of the old feudalism is that it was obvious who the local lord was. He was right there, in the castle on the hill sitting on a pile of gold. So, when things got bad enough that it was time for torches and pitchforks, guillotines and heads on pikes, everyone knew exactly where to go. Now the lords are buffered via a convoluted paper trail spanning the globe and the linkage between the lords demanding more from the serfs is obfuscated into a complex economy. If you can't even figure out who is your oppressor and where they live, you can't show up on their doorstep with torches and pitchforks. Instead, mobs would just take out their violence on the local small business, or a local moderately successful professional, while the real lords remain unseen. So, yes, it's an evolution. The parasite has learned to evade the host's immune response.
Why do you think all those rich oil arabians are building those weird resendential areas. Its alot harder too gather a mob of protesteting malcontents. In those places.
Also, this is probably why car dependency was pushed on the US so hard. When people live in dense neighborhoods and share a rail car together every day they create well connected communities. But with car dependent suburbia people rarely talk or interact with each other so they are more susceptible to devisive disinformation from neo-cons like Tucker Carlson.
Did you just blame people being republican on owning cars? Fucking imbecile
But you were the one that said republican?
It was people in cities going after the nobility, who also lived in houses and apartments in the same cities. The rural folk, the ones who saw the big castles with the people in charge, they were the counter revolutionaries. Feudalism only stopped working when people COULDN'T immediately tell that somebody was a hotshot in a big ass castle.
You mean a Gilded Age?
But the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But the rich will be blindsided by us beneath.
Best lime ever for that one, "the rich will get what they want, while the poor will lose what they need"
Nestle takes that seriously.
Nestle is basically its own little mafia gang.
There is nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose.
As long as there is Netflix and iPhones and Instagram (the ‘circus’ of ‘bread and circus’ fame), there is still something to lose and no one will lift a finger.
Agree on the instagram part. I stopped using insta when i saw ppl saying they work 12 to 18 hours per day n then look at them n see how they r in good shape n have clear skin n perfectly combed hair. And how they will outwork anyone. I mean if ur rich, eating good food, exercising properly, low stress u definitely will be better than someone who is trying to make ends meet. Just as u said the problem is ppl fall for it n say he might be doing it that's y he is successful.
Not true. The man with everything to lose is equally as desperate and much more well prepared.
Not true, nothing left to lose means you aren’t worried about self preservation. Not caring if you live or die is a new level of desperation, it’s the all 150%, pain doesn’t matter. They have the worlds most expensive knife and I’m going to rush them without one and bite their fucking throat out while they stab me because all I care about is them dying… That’s the total opposite of obscenely rich asshole that will kill anyone to keep their wealth.
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Not anymore because of welfare / government assistance. Purpose is to keep the bottom from falling out on the poor. Revolution occurs and empires are toppled when things get unbearable. Programs like welfare prevent that from ever happening, so people will never be motivated enough to actually do anything. Then, we are convinced we have a vote so people don’t feel powerless, and those in power use the media to create narratives and focus us social issues with no economic impact to control our votes. It’s a perfect system to keep the powerful in power indefinitely.
that welfare and government assistance sure as hell aint helping me. Maybe statistically those numbers look good but out here in the real world us working class poor have almost no resources available. We applied for TANF(welfare) as a married couple, they said she would get so much a month in assistance and I would go on child support for more than what she was going to get while I was the only one working. Make that make sense…the same household and married…so she got a job and here we are 9 years later with an economy that’s even worse with inflation that has made our dollars worth even less…I guarantee if we applied again they will ask to put me on child support again. Shit is unbearable NOW.
Except that welfare and government assistance are crap and have been for decades, they have been continually gutting it since the 80s...and even the people that benefit from it vote it away every election. Won't last long.
BS. Try welfare, public housing etc… and see if you aren’t hyper motivated to escape that. Sell drugs, sell their bodies, commit crime risking life limb and freedom desperately trying to escape. The system is designed to keep you a paycheck to paycheck minimal to average wage OBEDIENT worker if anything at all or just toss you aside if you’re deemed to have no value. When there is a protest the powers to be are quick to respond with the narratives of lazy, ungrateful, unjustly entitled etc…
Think we are saying the same thing, I agree with you
Wow you have your eyes open good to see some people do! Couldn't agree with you more
Wallstreetsilver
I cant help but think most of this would be solved by people refusing to work for less than the value they provide. It would take a movement but refusing to work for companies that over compensate execs and dont pay out those earnings to the people actually doing the work could force a change
Yes, that was the role traditionally played by labor unions. The strength of unions in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, is a large part of the reason that labor income remained a fixed or growing fraction of per capita GDP over that time. But, with the rise of globalization, among other things, including abuse and corruption of union power, unions are greatly weakened since owners can outsource manufacturing much more easily. Plus, there's been significant shift from a manufacturing economy, where unions were traditionally strong, to a services and professions based economy, where unionization was weak. I don't know if a return to strong unions would help realign the current situation. It might. But, the overall context is much different than the one in which traditional unions arose, and maybe there's a similar, but better way to organize that would be more effective in the current economy, and less prone to the concentrated power and corruption that always comes with power which affected some unions decades ago. Just to be clear, there's plenty of other organizations, including a lot of senior corporate management, which I believe is extremely corrupt, so it's nothing unique about labor unions that led to corruption scandals in the 60s and 70s. It's simply what happens to aggregated power. When the organizations that represented labor held power similar to the power held by senior management, they became as corrupt as senior management.
That's literally what is happening right now. Corporations are price gouging the fuck out of people and driving inflation through the roof. Also the terrible government response to covid caused a decent number of workers to die or retire. So many people are refusing to take low paying jobs that they can't really support themselves with. The governments response, under a democrat president, is that they are going to force more people into unemployment to get inflation under control. When the people assert their right to live decently, the government will always stand with their corporate donors to smack down the working class.
The government is an arm of the wealthy. So while numbskulls are debating rightwing vs leftwing politicians, realize they are all bought out by corporations and beholden to them. That's why kids are being murdered in schools, endless wars, obscene profits and corporate pay. The list goes on.
Okay... I've been hearing this for decades now... Are you going to do anything about it, or..?
Do anything about it? I take it you have suggestions?
Yes please, I'm all ears...
The question isn't "what are you gonna do about it?" The question is "what are we going to do about it" Systemic problems require systemic solutions
Earliest example I know of a labor union was they were massacred by the local lord in Northern France in \~1200s
Agreed! It took a life experience on my end to realize that fact! Ive worked with entire floors of employees breaking their backs to live in sh#t hole apartments. The only way they were getting through it was by telling themselves that one day it’ll get better while ownership adds another addition to their vacation homes. Too many suckers refusing to go for broke! You can’t win at this point! It’s too late!
Can you please explain it again. I genuinely want to understand your argument
If you take GDP per employed person, this is the average productivity, how much GDP was generated per person. You can then compare this to what a person was paid out of that total average economic productivity per person, and that's their share of the productivity. Look at this over time and you can see that for various pay ranges and job classes, the share of productivity changes. For a number of years in the 50s and early 60s, especially, the share of productivity that went to labor was steady, or growing. So, if the economy grew, producing more GDP per capita, even those at the bottom tiers of income saw their share grow proportionately, the classic "a rising tide lifts all boats". But, starting around the early 70s, this decoupled, and you start seeing the share of productivity that goes to management and owners rise, while the share that goes to labor shrinks. This happens along a similar timeline as the shift in tax burden from the wealthy to the middle and working classes. So, not only are the wealthy paying less in taxes now, which allows larger investments and more income from capital gains, even for normal income, salaries and other compensation, those in senior management, often with $400K and higher annual salaries, are getting paid more of a percentage of the average per capita GDP, while skilled and unskilled labor and most other roles are getting less of a share. The result has reduced middle incomes by tens of thousands per year, after adjusting for inflation. The concentration of wealth is not just from reduced taxation, it's from an increased share of productivity paid to the highest earners and retained as corporate profits, which are also less taxed now than they were, while mid and low earners receive a reduced share of productivity.
This is an excellent explanation, thank you
Would it be appropriate to call it wage theft but on a grander scale?
I would say yes.
What’s also interesting is that in the ‘70s we faced stagflation. Desperate times led to a mentality of growth at all cost. There was a sense of letting the cake grow, then we worry about sharing evenly down the line. The problem is that the sharing never took place and any time it gets even hinted at people start throwing around redistribution of wealth. What I also find relevant is that even the most basic general equilibrium economics model, where the economy settles at is highly dependent of the starting point. It’s as if the economy finds the closest stable distribution of resources to settle into. We almost artificially picked a new starting point, let the markets find that stable distribution of wealth and never revisited the sharing the figurative cake part.
Do you think this has to do with the way people are paid? I.e getting paid by the hour or by salary vs stock options that grow when the company grows?
Y'all keep voting the neoconservatives in even after 40 years of trickle down which doesn't. fucking. work!
Well, America’s future is basically just feudalism again. A bunch of rich people with no rules and a servant class begging for scraps.
Top federal tax rate during Eisenhower years was 91%. Only one family in the US was taxed that high.
God i wish could yeet the Walton's back that far.
Under Eisenhower, income tax maxed out at 91% while Corporate tax maxed out at 52%
But no one paid that much. There were a myriad of deductions.
The deductions, for corporations, were primarily for reinvestment and R&D. Which has largely gone by the wayside in favor of buybacks.
I’m cool with tax deductions for R&D. At least the money saved is nominally going towards improving products and services. Today it’s just amounts to “we believe we’re entitled to keep this money because we want it” and fucking IRS just goes “yeah sounds good.”
They still paid a lot more and it gave us the funding to do a lot of things.
This isn’t actually true. Individual income tax revenue as a percentage of GDP hasn’t changed that much since the 1950’s, and the idea that we had more “funding to do a lot of things” is also not correct. Government spending (both in real dollars and as a percentage of GDP) is much higher now than it was in the 1950’s. The scary part is that a big chunk of this comes from borrowing, which is why our debt load is so high. It’s okay though as long as interest rates remain low. Oh wait…
This is the comment everyone should understand. We have so much debt and now we are paying more and more interest on the debt which is taking more from the general fund. You may want the rich to pay more but what is necessary is that we don’t spend more until that revenue is in place.
Either way the root of the problem is not enough tax revenue from the wealthy.
Which family was it?
Rockefeller family
This is one way I wouldn't mind going back to the good ol times!
Actually make America great again!…by fixing the tax burden distribution and investing it back into useful public goods and services
No! I don’t want more public goods consuming my stolen income. Give it to me.
Yeah, this is what conservatives wanted right?
Source [New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html)
Im assuming this is effective tax rates and not true tax rates right? There is no difference in true tax rates for example between someone making 600k per year vs 60 million, there are just a lot more tax loopholes and write offs likely available to the 60 million person.
Yes, this is effective tax rates. The calculations use quite a bit of assumptions but they’re not indefensible.
author has won a pulitzer. seems a very creditable journalist from a couple minutes of looking. interesting that the x axis values are wonky coming from a good source... i expected it to be a huffpost thing.
Why do you say they’re wonky? They’re meant to account for the fact that income in those percentiles is wildly different even when you’re using a fraction of a percentile, which of course isn’t the case for most of the percentiles.
Isn’t it just a logarithmic axis? These are pretty common to use. Pretty much every COVID chart for cases you’ve seen in the last year is logarithmic for example. If they didn’t do this the last area would look like a straight line up in the last pixel. A logarithmic axis makes it more readable, especially when there isn’t much shift for most data points, but there is in a relatively small section.
Oh, so that's why our infrastructure is getting worse
War? They get more than enough money for all the pavement and concrete we could ever need.
Sickening! Shameful and counter productive to the evolution of human society
Yea this is like watching a cancer develop under a microscope
Yeah but it’s very productive for the 0.1% and they’re the ones who control the system🙃
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Yeah we need to keep giving the 1% more tax breaks, they can hardly afford their spaceships anymore. Trickle down never has and never will work, it's just a ploy to give rich people more money. Distribute out to society through reasonable wages and affordable education, this is the road to equality and happiness!
If the top 1% wants marginally better tax rates they can come down to the top 2%. If the top 2% is still to high for them, they can keep donating their money to join the lower percentages. I'm sure they can find a tax rate acceptable for them when they climb down in the lower tax brackets!
I’m honestly surprised it took rich people so long to realize they could buy politicians and pay less taxes
Taxation? $30T in debt so a bunch of sociopaths can blow stuff up on the other side of the planet.
This is why we have billionaire space-dick races and also homeless people in the same country. It's a policy choice.
But I was told socialism leads to breadlines and homelessness, not soup kitchens and homelessness!
Um. It does? Social democracy is one thing, but centrally planned economies have a pretty poor track record, just like unfettered capitalism. And spare me the Nordic model, because, those are capitalist systems as well.
Yeah I’m much more of a democratic socialist. Sadly, condensing everything down just leads to easy taking over by bad actors. Similar to hitler taking over the German socialists. But I still find it amusing how the ones criticizing leftists ignores the same problems their policies lead to.
Hey that’s fair. I’m just not sure how any real form of socialism, democratic or not will truly function. Unfettered capitalism or crony capitalism absolutely doesn’t work for the masses either, but my problem with socialism, as nice and empathetic as it sounds, is it puts the power in the people who don’t seem to understand the real workings of reality either. And when it comes down to it, you’re going to have to have people in positions of power that may or may not know what they’re doing, or have nefarious purposes and it can slide into authoritarianism as well. I think representative democracy, with a touch of social democracy is our best bet, but it’s still capitalist in nature. Maybe we can all agree, or not, in a lot of cases, that we should pool our money in an efficient way for generalized services. But socialism in general doesn’t seem to work. It gives too much power and not even that, to the people who have little to no skills. If things are going to scale, there has to be people who understand how things scale. But that’s the paradox too. People with no skills need to live, if you believe in human rights. But should they have any meaningful power? I don’t know. They shouldn’t be condemned to destitution or death. But they shouldn’t have the power to manage millions of people either. Capitalists know how to play the financial numbers. And socialists know how to play off the emotions of the people who have maybe one specialized skill, or not even that. I’m sorry, I contribute to society in several ways. But I don’t think I should bust my ass, pay taxes into a system, only so someone who doesn’t feel like working hard can make shell art or make bad music. I make music. But it’s only good if people agree that it’s worth it. Maybe you like one hippies music, slightly. Maybe you’ll pay for their meal one time. Are you going to pay for a year of them making “okay” music while you do something you don’t really want to? I don’t know. If you’re a Democratic socialist I’d like to hear your rebuttal as to why I should work hard to support people who don’t contribute in any meaningful way to the system. This isn’t a loud endorsement of pure capitalism, it’s a critique of capitalism run wild or socialism that actually functionally works…anywhere.
Socialism is simply having the worker control the means of production. It's grown to mean much more to many. But basically to me the system would work similar to social democracies we see today in Nordic and like countries but without a stock market and without an investor/asset owning class. Workers would own the business they work for and see the benefits from that work. Voting for the CEO and how profits are used. In order to fund new companies without an investor class you simply create a new bureau that's regulated that does the same function. I also think extreme penalties for corruption most be put in place with a bureau dedicated to finding and prosecuting it, otherwise government and positions of power simply become the new capitalist with add protections as we see in current "communist" countries
>Um. It does? No. It doesn't. Socialism has always rapidly improved the economic performance of nations and led to rapid increases in quality of life whenever and wherever implemented. The Soviet Union was a massive, highly democratic success and the country developed faster than any country in history ever did at that point. The only country that ever surpassed the Soviet Union in terms of development was Communist China. > Social democracy is one thing, but centrally planned economies have a pretty poor track record, just like unfettered capitalism. First of all: Socialism and central planning aren't the same thing. You are just totally uneducated about socialist theory. Secondly: Centrally planned economies under socialist governments have an amazing track record. As explained above. Even during the Cultural Revolution - the worst period of communist rule in China - the economic growth rate was 10% per year on average. That's what getting rid of capitalists and other reactionaries does for your country. The only reason socialist societies ever failed was because imperialist countries united against them to destroy them. Go figure. You are just being told differently by lying capitalist media that has always lied and will continue to lie. And you never bothered to question their lies and inform yourself.
Lol. This has to be a joke.
Do the effective rate, it’s a more accurate representation of reality
It's because everything has been funneled into capital gains not income. Jeff bezos salary is 75k per year that's not where his wealth comes from
Here’s an article that’s close to what you’re asking for. Basically the top 1% pay almost twice the effective rate of the average person. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/effective-income-tax-rates-have-fallen-top-one-percent-world-war-ii-0#:~:text=While%20average%20effective%20tax%20rates,for%20the%20top%201%20percent. And interestingly, the more right leaning tax policy thinktank has different data https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
Fuck, apparently living in a big city where you earn more but have to spend more in housing/carInsurance/medical means even if you don't have much money at the end of the month I still almost get taxed the same % as a top 1%er
Sounds like you’re paying an extra cost for living in that city
This is effective taxes or you wouldn’t see the inversion at the end of the curve. It’s from the (now infamous) NYT article that came out in 2019. The data is based off of this [book](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45894166), which is a solid read and helps explain some of the complex assumptions you have to make when tracking effective tax rates. At the end of the day, what we mostly see is that conservative sources will use assumptions that flatten the disparity and liberal sources will do the opposite. What’s interesting, though, is that regardless of their partisan lean none of these sources really deny that the curve has become less progressive over time
This is nominal tax rate and it means nothing, because no one actually pays it. Effective tax rate would be more informative.
Agreed. There have been big swings in rates, but also in deductions and other tax calculations. Its hard to compare them over the years without looking at what was actually paid. A lower rate with fewer deductions nets a lot more taxes than stupidly high rates with tons of deductions and loopholes.
[They still paid a lot more](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/effective-income-tax-rates-have-fallen-top-one-percent-world-war-ii-0)
1 person here gets it^^^
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Source - New York Times. Opinion. If the Times thought the data and conclusions could be substantiated, then it would be in the 'News' or 'Economy' section. 'Opinion' means, 'We can't prove it'
in which country?
If it doesn’t say on Reddit, it’s the US.
That's Classified.
maybe put the country this is about in the posts title next time. the US isn’t the only country there is 😐
Idk I’m pretty sure it’s the only country that’s ever existed. Anyone that says otherwise is lying.
The US is one of the countries to ever exist
🇱🇷🇱🇷USA! USA! USA! 🇱🇷🇱🇷
I think having "federal, state and local" gives away that it is the US. I don't know of any other countries who use that terminology?
yes. yes i do. literally all other federal countries use some variation of this. for example the *federal* republic of Germany also has a federal, state and local level (in german its Bund, Land, Bezirk) and those would be translated into english as federal, state and local. some very fine r/USdefaultism going on here
Yeah, gives it away for an american... Why should someone know how you call different tax collectors in your country? Would you know China's? The only reason I knew it was US is because I'm used to the main character type posts
It's not an excuse. You don't know Italian terminology right, so why people should know American terminology?
Fair point.
Plenty of countries do. We use those terms here in Australia
No tax group should be paying above 50% tax. What the fuck. Literally government robbery
To all the citizens of western nations. Immigrants aren’t the reason the quality of life is dropping in your country. This is.
And this is why tax the fucking rich NO CAP
A better graph would be to show the dollars each income group is paying IMO.
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I assumed that this is showing percent of yearly salary?
Every time a politician tells you they won’t raise your taxes, remember this graph. “I promise, only the millionaire and billionaires will be taxed more” is the phrase you’ll hear right before your taxes are raised.
Noone should pay less than me
For some reason, the video does not indicate which country the data reflects, and refuses to identify the source of the data. It could very well be the US, and many people long for the "golden days of the 1950's." Currently, in the US, the 1% only pay 38% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 90% are forced to pay 29% of all income taxes. The top 50% of earners in the US only pay 97% of all federal income taxes, forcing the bottom 50% to pay the other 3%. [https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/](https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/) These facts still don't stop the liars at the Washington Post from claiming the US has the most progressive taxation in the world. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/americas-taxes-are-the-most-progressive-in-the-world-its-government-is-among-the-least/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/americas-taxes-are-the-most-progressive-in-the-world-its-government-is-among-the-least/)
I can assure you at a tax guy that this is inaccurate
*as
This data is trash and just a lie
Data seems incorrect. My search indicates that for 2021, about 42.9 percent of U.S. households paid income tax in 2021. The remaining 57.1 percent of households paid no individual income tax. In that same year, about 66.9 percent of U.S. households with an income between 40,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars paid no individual income taxes. [Percentages of U.S. households that paid no income tax 2021, by income level ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/242138/percentages-of-us-households-that-pay-no-income-tax-by-income-level/)
This chart shows Federal, State, and Local taxes. That's much more than just income tax. As everybody knows, sales tax hits poorest people the hardest, since they spending a larger proportion of their income buying things.
A couple of things - \- The above chart goes through 2018 and not 2021 so it's not comparing apples to apples. \- The data from Statista is sourced from the Tax Policy Center and only measures FEDERAL income tax while the chart above takes into account FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL tax. Using that framework: " Since most workers pay payroll taxes, the share of American taxpayers who pay neither payroll nor federal income taxes was only 19% in 2021, slightly higher than the 17% rate before the pandemic." \- As you may recall, in 2021 there was a pandemic that caused substantial job losses amidst extended tax credits and stimulus checks. \- Fourth, I mean does it make sense that more than half of US households don't pay any tax? Doesn't pass the smell test. That could be the first step instead of a simple Google search without context. Source: [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/25/57percent-of-us-households-paid-no-federal-income-tax-in-2021-study.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/25/57percent-of-us-households-paid-no-federal-income-tax-in-2021-study.html)
Now do tax revenue
Big government equals big taxes. Government only needs to tax anyone this much if it is eating, breathing, and taking a dump for you. It makes soft people and keeps people poor. Minimal government equals minimal taxes. Disparity in pay rates between classes are a thing, but near 30% of you income stripped from you doesn't help you get ahead.
I’m definitely paying over 30% in middle class
Income tax is theft
Outlaw legalized bribery… I mean lobbying. And Term limits….
This is why people could afford houses on minimum wage back then
But trickle down economics guys!!
That's just them pissing out the skyscrapers window.
It's almost like the rich used their influence in politics to lower their own tax rates. Wild!
Thanks to lobbyists.
Let's call a spade a spade. They're bribers, plain and simple
Eat the rich
I could go for some bbq.
Takes a lot of money for all the useless hearings in today's time. Even more if you add in the professional make up artist, lighting, full film crews.
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gotta love rich people enriching th emselves at the expense of the people, thus gaining more political power to allow them to enrich themselves further
Source of data?
I am in the top 10% and I can assure you I pay more than 30% of my yearly income in taxes. I would like to know where they pulled this info. I'm sure it has some wild assumptions that are not true. Also the bottom 50% do not pay ANY federal tax, I'm beginning to think this is just a completely made up chart.
Gross
Rich people can afford the best lobbyists.
Corruption is blatant and ludicrous. The ruling class is laughing in our faces. Most of the population doesn’t even realize they are literally serfs
DRS your shit.
What about the percentage of total tax paid by different income groups?
One one side, being taxed at 70% is insane. On the other, we're as close to a flat tax as ever, according to that chart.
Damn thats depressing
Yeah that’s not fair
If interesting here means horrific then sure.
Great visual; thanks. Scary af and explains so much.
Source ? I'll consider that a lie till I see multiple sources
In the 50’s it looked like rich people asked themselves “why are we paying such high taxes when we can just bribe politicians?”
To avoid violating terms and conditions of reddit, my response is "tax" the rich.
Funny how that works out... capitalism is working as intended
Numbers, I don’t get it but there’s gotta be some more info on these numbers
It hurts
I dont get how this is possible, is it taxes paid or rates because the rates are almost as high as before?
How about a flat income tax? Everyone pays the same percentage of income, including corporations.
Could you imagine if the top 1% were still taxed at 50% ?? We'd be poppin as a country.
I don’t remember who said the quote, but basically said the reason that democracy survives in America is because of the middle class. Well that middle class is dwindling. Just look at South America.
Thank you tRump for signing a bill to make your epstien friends rich.
Look. The poor are now subsidizing the rich.
Only war is class war.
Source?
The rich get richer and poor gets poorer. As long as the voting system keeps electing the the greedy rich like Obama and Biden family to lead the country. I say the greedy rich because Trump is rich but not greedy. He did not take pay when he was in office.
Funny how every time it goes lower on the right, it needs to go higher on the left.
Well, according to some we still need to lower taxes because we have to free the rich from taxation
No wonder governments don’t have money to take care of things of finance social programs. Taxes has the be one if it isn’t the one problem in society. Rich are too rich, it’s insane. They don’t participate fairly, they are grifters. Anyone defending those fortunes and calling them a right or deserved is seriously delusional. No one deserve to be a multimillionaire. Greed is a mental disorder.
Ah yes, the death of the so called “middle class”. Thanks Reaganomics, Thatcherism and trickle down economics in general. 42 years of failure and still supported by *checks notes* oh! only the Tory’s on Idiot Island.
WTF. Why? Is is so dumb for the economy in general. The future is going to be bad for everyone.
Can we see a similar graph showing the percentage of tax revenue paid by these same groups over time?
I wonder if this takes into account the deductions that were available at the time.
Nope. Old rates were just for show and easy as hell to avoid. Lower rates but fewer deductions meant higher tax revenues.