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No idea. See above.
Aside from just proving you haven't experience much in life, it isn't really telling.
Done. I'm not on the far right either. I'm actually generally more left leaning than right leaning politically since neither party is really fiscally responsible, I vote more on social policy issues where I lean pretty left.
Actually, not they don't. At the low end of what could possibly considered the middle-class, yes. For the median income and above, however, Americans are still better off than Canadians. The old joke with middle-class is it's everyone making $25,000 to $100,000/year. That's a bit outdated these days since it's an old joke, but you get the idea.
I'm not sure if you read your links, but they support the argument that 1. the USA has the worst income inequality - aside from Mexico and Turkey. 2. that Canadians are better off than Americans. And, 3. The top 5% (or 10%) of Americans are doing better than other countries.
I'm not sure if you read your links, but they support the argument that 1. the USA has the worst income inequality - aside from Mexico and Turkey. 2. that Canadians are better off than Americans. And, 3. The top 5% (or 10%) of Americans are doing better than other countries.
He didn't ask about income inequality. You can use the drop boxes to get the information you want easily, but that doesn't change the URL. Specifically, if you look at US poverty rate BEFORE taxes/transfers, you'll see it's not really that bad for OECD countries. If you look AFTER taxes/transfers, you'll see that the poverty rate is quite high. OECD has a much broader definition that is probably more appropriate than the US poverty line. Basically, the reason you might think you see more poverty here is because the US is less of a welfare state than most countries.
Basically, you have to be pretty poor here to have your lifestyle subsidized by the labor of others which isn't true in most OECD countries. That doesn't really bother me. I don't think people should be living a middle-class lifestyle off the earnings of others.
Pre-tax/transfers, 28% of the US lives in poverty vs 26% for Canada. Post-taxes and transfers that changes to 14.9% for the US and 11.6% for Canada respectively.
I don't really read the articles. I just look at the data since the articles are generally poorly written and erroneous. For example, the data disputes the article's claims that Canadians are richer than Americans. The dividing line is right about median income. The article doesn't mention that, it just falsely says that Canadian middle-class is richer than the American middle-class before presenting the data that refutes its claim.
Uh, yes there is a lot of poverty in the US. One need only look around, particularly in certain states. As I said, in certain parts of the country, there's more poverty than I've ever seen in my life. Wait! No - I'm wrong. I guess I saw worse poverty in the Dominican Republic (but that's the only developing/ third world country I've been in).
And you felt the need to make that passive-aggressive little dig, did ya? Why? THAT is really telling.
How on earth do you know how much "experience" I've had (whatever that means)? It's obvious that YOU don't have much experience having mature, adult conversation without feeling the need to throw insults when someone says something you disagree with.
And I'm from Canada, so you don't have to tell me about it. Thanks, though.
If you've never seen more poverty than here, you haven't experienced much. I can only go by what you say. I can't know that you were actually not being literal when you said it, could I?
If I'd know you were being sarcastic with your comment that you'd never seen more poverty than in the US, I wouldn't have replied the way I did. Sarcasm doesn't come across all that well in written form which leads to confusion at times.
He didn't ask about income inequality. You can use the drop boxes to get the information you want easily, but that doesn't change the URL. Specifically, if you look at US poverty rate BEFORE taxes/transfers, you'll see it's not really that bad for OECD countries. If you look AFTER taxes/transfers, you'll see that the poverty rate is quite high. OECD has a much broader definition that is probably more appropriate than the US poverty line. Basically, the reason you might think you see more poverty here is because the US is less of a welfare state than most countries.
Basically, you have to be pretty poor here to have your lifestyle subsidized by the labor of others which isn't true in most OECD countries. That doesn't really bother me. I don't think people should be living a middle-class lifestyle off the earnings of others.
Pre-tax/transfers, 28% of the US lives in poverty vs 26% for Canada. Post-taxes and transfers that changes to 14.9% for the US and 11.6% for Canada respectively.
Okay. The drop down box didn't work for me, but that seems accurate.
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Originally Posted by Malloric
I don't really read the articles. I just look at the data since the articles are generally poorly written and erroneous. For example, the data disputes the article's claims that Canadians are richer than Americans. The dividing line is right about median income. The article doesn't mention that, it just falsely says that Canadian middle-class is richer than the American middle-class before presenting the data that refutes its claim.
What data though? The median wealth in Canada in 2X what it is in the USA and the median income is also higher. The only part of the article alluding to higher pay was only talking about the Americans at the top of the income scale. There was a graph that showed 40% of Americans are still better off than Canadians after tax. Is that what you are referring to?
Before tax Canadians are in a vastly better position, but they do have higher taxes.
What data though? The median wealth in Canada in 2X what it is in the USA and the median income is also higher. The only part of the article alluding to higher pay was only talking about the Americans at the top of the income scale. There was a graph that showed 40% of Americans are still better off than Canadians after tax. Is that what you are referring to?
Before tax Canadians are in a vastly better position, but they do have higher taxes.
Median net wealth in America is very low. Average net wealth is very high. The disparity is two-fold here. Partially it's because income disparity is high and partially it's because as a country we do a very good job maximizing current consumption at the expense of savings rate. We're about half of the EU-15. Although Canada isn't much better than the US so that doesn't really explain it.
I don't really know what the answer to either of those problems really is. The extensive welfare state solution in Europe isn't without problems. Savings is already given a pretty big tax advantage in this country, probably TOO big of a tax advantage. Raising the long-term capital gains rate to 20-25% might help in some areas but it certainly won't encourage the country to save and invest money. Also, we live in a consumption economy. While in the long-term we'd probably be better off saving more, it would have some pretty serious short-term consequences for the economy.
Median net wealth in America is very low. Average net wealth is very high. The disparity is two-fold here. Partially it's because income disparity is high and partially it's because as a country we do a very good job maximizing current consumption at the expense of savings rate. We're about half of the EU-15. Although Canada isn't much better than the US so that doesn't really explain it.
I don't really know what the answer to either of those problems really is. The extensive welfare state solution in Europe isn't without problems. Savings is already given a pretty big tax advantage in this country, probably TOO big of a tax advantage. Raising the long-term capital gains rate to 20-25% might help in some areas but it certainly won't encourage the country to save and invest money. Also, we live in a consumption economy. While in the long-term we'd probably be better off saving more, it would have some pretty serious short-term consequences for the economy.
I don't know that raising taxes accomplishes much. I mean, that can slow income inequality growth but that doesn't raise the middle or lower incomes.
Yup, it doesn't really explain it. Honestly, I've long been confounded by the median income in America being what it is. I don't make great income. I'm around the median household income here in California and in my 20s. I'm not some Mr. Money Mustache prodigy that socks away 50% of my income. I'm still somehow above the median net worth although certainly much closer to the median than the average.
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I don't know that raising taxes accomplishes much. I mean, that can slow income inequality growth but that doesn't raise the middle or lower incomes.
Well, mostly what it would accomplish is that taxes needs to be raised somewhere or spending needs to be cut, probably a combination of the two. Nobody wants their taxes raised, of course, and capital gains taxes might create capital flight. Easier for capital to leave than labor and all.
WHY is there so much poverty in the United States of America?
I've never seen so much poverty in my life until I came to the US 17 years ago
Why is that?
Why are there so many WORKING poor in the US? Why?
A significant over supply of labor hours available vs hours of work available.
Especially at the no/low skill end of the spectrum.
That creates a market devaluation of those labor hours.
It's not all that complicated.
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Why don't I see that in my home country or other western countries I've visited?
Maybe they manage to hide it better?
But more likely because the demographics are better aligned.
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