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· Poverty rate down from 12.3% to 11.8%; childhood poverty fell faster; net 1.4 million people left poverty
· Income in the bottom 80% of households was up significantly, only the top 20% of households saw an income decline, as a result, the Gini coefficient (a measure of income inequality, higher numbers mean more inequality) fell from 0.489 to 0.486
...
The economy did well, all the real measures of economic well-being were improved, and the Gini coefficient went down. More money, more equality. But you wouldn’t know it from the headlines.
If their numbers include California, it's probably better nationwide than the numbers indicate.
Good news - income inequality is slowly reversing course set since 2000.
I suppose we will go back to "normal" when Trump is out.
When was the last time this country was "normal" economically speaking?
To my friends on the left, tax cuts and corporate greed are not responsible for the growth in wealth inequality. The federal government has gotten more involved in education, health insurance, and housing in recent years. The cost of these goods/services has increased. The combination of price increases and the Federal Reserve's policy of having artificially low interest rates has encouraged people to take on more debt, thus net worth for most of the country has either been stagnant or declined in recent years.
To my friends who are Trump supporters, lousy monetary and fiscal policies have increased wealth inequality, not free trade or immigration. If anything, free trade and legal immigration have prevented the gap between rich and poor from being any wider.
This really isn't news, this has been happening for many years. I support policies that lower the wealth inequality if it does so by lifting up the lower end.
Um, wealth consists of assets that appreciate in value, so why wouldn't wealth increase?
Notwithstanding the Equivocation Fallacy of equivocating Wealth with Income, anyone can have wealth, you just have to want to have it and most Americans have no desire to do what is necessary to acquire wealth.
I believe that one reason wealth equality will tend to be the greatest in urban areas because that’s where much of the wealth is. There’s not going to be a lot of inequality in areas where there isn’t as much wealth to begin with.
It’s like saying that there will be a greater differences in the the height of city buildings than the in the height of rural buildings. The cities are where you have the skyscrapers, whereas the tallest buildings in rural areas are going to tend to be no taller than a couple of stories.
In my experience this isn't the case. In rural areas the money is truly concentrated in the hands of a very few. This is because wage earners in rural areas are mostly on the lower end of the spectrum.
Unless there is a factory that pays union level wages there is Walmart and a bunch of minimum wage jobs at convenience stores and the like. Then you have the wealthy land owners, the business and bank owners and a handful of professional people. In many small towns literally the only place you see middle income wage earners are at the hospital and the school. Meanwhile the guy that owns a small chain of convenience stores has the biggest house in town.
To reduce inequality in a meaningful long term way.
1) Enforce antitrust laws
2) Amend the constitution to eliminate the plutocrats ability to buy congress.
To my friends on the left, tax cuts and corporate greed are not responsible for the growth in wealth inequality. The federal government has gotten more involved in education, health insurance, and housing in recent years. The cost of these goods/services has increased. The combination of price increases and the Federal Reserve's policy of having artificially low interest rates has encouraged people to take on more debt, thus net worth for most of the country has either been stagnant or declined in recent years.
To my friends who are Trump supporters, lousy monetary and fiscal policies have increased wealth inequality, not free trade or immigration. If anything, free trade and legal immigration have prevented the gap between rich and poor from being any wider.
Millions of 6 figure or close to it(with OT) manufacturing jobs lost... coincidence ?
It's mainly because of automation. We need fewer unskilled workers every year, because they are slowly being replaced with machines.
It's easy to say "but automation" , when talking about manufacturing jobs to people that don't know much about them. Assembly is a small portion of the manufacturing pie. We close to lost entire industries (die and mold making for instance) , due to being offshored. Those are highly skilled well paying jobs that someone , not a robot is doing them in China. We had to source an IP mold , got a competitive price with one of the few mold shops here in the states that could do it...but in the end had to send it to China. The supplier I was working with had money invested in the China tool shop and they were sitting idle so , needed the work. Design and engineering is also a part of manufacturing. Currently our floor trim, door trim and electrical harness are being designed in Mexico... and not by robots. Much of our Class A surfacing got shipped offshore to India...again, not being done by robots. These are examples of well paying skilled jobs that Americans have lost to globalism.
But hey, we can be a service industry right ?! Bring on that $15 an hour...
LOL. You're citing bought-and-paid-for liars. Immigration (1) brings poor people to the US, (2) takes wealth from the middle class through taxation and wage decreases, and (3) enriches some of the wealthiest in the country by allowing them to privatize profits and socialize costs. Immigration is probably the main factor in the increase in "inequality".
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