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No, you're talking wage distribution. i wouldn't necessarily disagree, but given that the working notion of our economy is that everyone gets to keep as many nickels as he can grab and any notion of spreading them around is that g'damned socialist nonsense, I'm amused.
Quietude, I don't know what you mean by “wage distribution” but there are reasons for “wage differentiation”.
The federal minimum wage rate bolsters all USA wage scales but it doesn't affect them all to the same extent. The extents of its effects are inversely related to the differences between the minimum and the jobs' rates' of pay.
The minimum rate's beneficial effect, proportional to a job's pay rate, is greater for the lowest pay-rate jobs, and of proportionally lesser benefit to higher pay rates; but its theoretically of some benefit to all employees.
I'm unaware of the lower income earners not outnumbering their nation's higher income earners within any nation's history. That being the case, USA never could have had a sufficient median income rate if our effective minimum wage rate was insufficient.
I'm not a socialist, but I am a proponent of populist economics. If the lowest income worker are poorer, than the median income workers are also comparatively poorer. The creed of populist economic policies should be “We all do better if we all do better”.
I think this thread is grievously flawed and not worth trying to salvage. The OP asked what is essentially a nonsense question, trying to reconcile two completely different economic indicators. He's refused to say why he thinks GDP is equivalent to individual income - and anyone with a slightly better grasp of economics knows that the two figures are only loosely related, with a hundred reasons why they are not identical nor move in lockstep.
Trying to pull out a different discussion like why GDP rises and wages remain static is an entirely different notion and any sea change in a thread just keeps drawing in people misled by the OP's mistakes.
Not to mention the crowd that regards any dollar "earned" that doesn't end up in their pile as being stolen by Socialist stormtroopers; the terrain in the middle between GDP and income is all about the factors that will enrage them, making the discussion even more fragmented and pointless.
GIGO, folks, and the OP, while perhaps well-intentioned, is G1. Someone ask a better question in a new thread.
I'll answer my own question. U.S. Census underestimated income PP. According to the Fed, income PP (2017) is $51,631. This is 86% of GDP PP, which is reasonable. (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A792RC0A052NBEA)
Note 1. I understand the difference between income and GDP. My original question was why income (U.S. Census) was only half the GDP. 86% (Fed) is sensible.
Note 2. Some of you may think U.S. Census only included wage/salary to calculate income. This is not true. U.S. Census also included other incomes such as dividends, social security, pension.
I'll answer my own question. U.S. Census underestimated income PP. According to the Fed, income PP (2017) is $51,631. This is 86% of GDP PP, which is reasonable. (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A792RC0A052NBEA)
Nope. You're comparing apples and oranges.
The measure at the start of this thread is income per capita, and the data comes from the Census Bureau which defines it as:
Per Capita Income – Per capita income is the mean income computed for every man,
woman, and child in a particular group including those living in group quarters. It is derived
by dividing the aggregate income of a particular group by the total population in that group.
(The aggregate used to calculate per capita income is rounded. For more information, see
“Aggregate” under “Derived Measures.”) Per capita income is rounded to the nearest whole
dollar.
The higher income you just sourced is from BEA and is personal income per capita:
BEA’s personal income statistics show the income that U.S. residents get from paychecks, employer-provided supplements such as insurance, business ownership, rental property, Social Security and other government benefits, interest, and dividends. (Personal income doesn’t include capital gains from changes in stock prices, however.)
In other words, the former uses aggregate data so includes people no income, while the latter is a snapshot of the average of people who have income.
I'll answer my own question. U.S. Census underestimated income PP. According to the Fed, income PP (2017) is $51,631. This is 86% of GDP PP, which is reasonable. (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A792RC0A052NBEA)
Note 1. I understand the difference between income and GDP. My original question was why income (U.S. Census) was only half the GDP. 86% (Fed) is sensible.
Note 2. Some of you may think U.S. Census only included wage/salary to calculate income. This is not true. U.S. Census also included other incomes such as dividends, social security, pension.
AceGolfer, if there's a difference between U.S. Census and the U.S. Bureau labor statistics statistics, perhaps its due to how they obtain their raw data?
The Census Bureau obtains data from questioning individual persons and enterprise's CFO's. These are not generally legally binding affidavits or I've never heard of anyone prosecuted for lying or inaccuracy of their replies to the U.S. Census Bureau. Income tax forms and U.S. Custom declarations are legally binding affidavits.
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