Income Inequality

The people getting screwed by the income tax rates are not the middle income taxpayers.  Their effective tax rate is actually quite low.  The upper middle class tax payers get the screw job  however, as they get very few tax breaks making the effective tax rate quite high comparatively speaking and don’t quality for other cost breaks like college tuition assistance.  

 
Archy1221 said:
The people getting screwed by the income tax rates are not the middle income taxpayers.  Their effective tax rate is actually quite low.  The upper middle class tax payers get the screw job  however, as they get very few tax breaks making the effective tax rate quite high comparatively speaking and don’t quality for other cost breaks like college tuition assistance.  
Click to expand...


There is some truth to this. A lot gets wrapped up in taxes and what the superrich don't pay. There's a huge gulf between the superrich and the upper middle class that loses a tax write-off or two at $400,000 a year, but also a huge gap between those $400,000 a year folks and the $68,000 a year median family income that can no longer afford monthly surprises and may be putting a quarter of its income to health insurance. A flat tax always sounds fair, but it will always hit people on the margins harder, and the American middle class now lives on a margin it didn't used to. 

 
Updates: Billionaire Wealth, U.S. Job Losses and Pandemic Profiteers

America’s billionaires have grown $2.1 trillion richer during the pandemic, their collective fortune skyrocketing by 70 percent — from just short of $3 trillion at the start of the COVID crisis on March 18, 2020, to over $5 trillion on October 15 of this year, according to Forbes data analyzed by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies Program on Inequality (IPS).
Click to expand...
To put this extraordinary wealth growth in perspective, the $2.1 trillion gain over 19 months by U.S. billionaires is equal to:

  • 60 percent of the $3.5 trillion 10-year cost of President Biden’s Build Back Better plan.
  • The entire $2.1 trillion in new revenues over 10 years approved by the House Ways and Means Committee to help pay for President Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) investment plan.
Click to expand...

 
Last edited by a moderator:
RedDenver said:
I do.
Click to expand...


RedDenver said:
I do.
Click to expand...
Ok just checking because for some reason your link discusses their gain from when the pandemic started as March 18 baseline.  Odd they would pick the low point in the market vs a baseline of just prior to the crash.  Me guesses they want to show the biggest gain possible to make their point instead of a truer pre/Covid vs post Covid gain. 

 
Archy1221 said:
Ok just checking because for some reason your link discusses their gain from when the pandemic started as March 18 baseline.  Odd they would pick the low point in the market vs a baseline of just prior to the crash.  Me guesses they want to show the biggest gain possible to make their point instead of a truer pre/Covid vs post Covid gain. 
Click to expand...
Yes, very odd for them to pick the pandemic as the time frame. Total mystery as to why.

Unless of course you read the title: Updates: Billionaire Wealth, U.S. Job Losses and Pandemic Profiteers

Or the subtitle: Check back for our regular updates on U.S. unemployment and billionaire wealth during the pandemic emergency.

And note that the updates started back on May 14th 2020, which is also when they picked the May 18 date. And they even mention the down point in billionaire wealth right in that first update:

Between March 18 and May 14, 2020, over 36 million U.S. workers lost their jobs, with 2.98 million claims in today’s announcement. Over these same eight weeks, U.S. billionaires saw their wealth increase by $368.8 billion, a 12.51 percent increase.

On March 18, U.S. billionaires had a combined $2.947 trillion, down from $3.111 trillion a year earlier, according to Forbes annual global billionaire survey. As of May 14, total U.S. billionaire wealth has increased to $3.316 trillion.
Click to expand...


Even if they had picked May of 2019, billionaires have increased their wealth from $3 trillion to $5 trillion, which is a 67% increase. In summary, way to miss the forest for the trees and even then being wrong.

 
Archy1221 said:
And an index fund would have returned 65% more wealth in that same time period :dunno    So billionaires are doing 2% better than us schmucks.  
Click to expand...
"us"

The wealthiest 10% of Americans own a record 89% of all U.S. stocks

The top 1% gained more than $6.5 trillion in corporate equities and mutual fund wealth during the Covid-19 pandemic, while the bottom 90% added $1.2 trillion, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve. The share of corporate equities and mutual funds owned by the top 10% reached the record high in the second quarter, while the bottom 90% of Americans held about 11% of individually held stocks, down from 12% before the pandemic.

The stock market, which has nearly doubled since the March 2020 drop and is up nearly 40% since January 2020, was the main source of wealth creation in America during the pandemic — as well as the main driver of inequality. The total wealth of the top 1% now tops 32%, a record, according to the Fed data. Nearly 70% of their wealth gains over the past year and a half — one of the fastest wealth booms in recent history — came from stocks.
Click to expand...


Who Owns Stocks? Explaining the Rise in Inequality During the Pandemic
 

When the market surged last year, wealthier families benefited more. Not only do they have larger portfolios than middle-class and poorer investors, but they also are far more likely to be invested in the market in the first place.
Click to expand...

 
Jon Stewart had Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, on his show recently. Pretty good conversation about our economy and leaving people behind over the last 20-30 years as the playing field has tilted heavily in favor of the wealthy individuals and corporations. 


 
Last edited by a moderator:
GSG said:
Jon Stewart had Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, on his show recently. Pretty good conversation about our economy and leaving people behind over the last 20-30 years as the playing field has tilted heavily in favor of the wealthy individuals and corporations. 
Click to expand...






Are the podcasts episodes complimentary to the weekly topics of the talk show on apple tv+? Or are they completely separate? 

 
Lorewarn said:
Are the podcasts episodes complimentary to the weekly topics of the talk show on apple tv+? Or are they completely separate? 
Click to expand...


I can't say for sure. I haven't watched the show. I think the "podcast" version is just the audio from the show but don't quote me on that

 
Back
Top