U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (the new chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee) says, “We have two people to be concerned about. One is the taxpayer. The other is the person receiving food stamps” — but also says a top priority of his committee is maintenance of the federal crop insurance program.
Question from the HuffPo Hill newsletter: "With states already cutting benefits for childless able-bodied adults -- the GOP's easiest target for the past few years -- what other population of the undeserving poor do Republicans have in mind?"
it's mostly because OPEC refused to cut output at their Thanksgiving meeting, so now everyone is producing to the hilt...
remember, the WTI oil price quotes are for light sweet oil at or delivered to the depot in Cushing Oklahoma; other prices may differ, depending on transportation costs, specific gravity and sulfur content…so in the last week of January, Williston Basin sweet crude from N. Dakota was quoted at $28.19 a barrel, while Williston sour had dropped down to $19.08 a barrel...
This is a canary in the coal mine...UNLESS, once again, it's just our HFT groups putting a yo-yo on. Key is physical supply as well. Remember in 2008 they had supply sitting on tankers way out at sea, "hidden"?
New York Times: Hillary Clinton, Privately, Seeks the Favor of Elizabeth Warren -- "Hillary Clinton held a private meeting with Senator Elizabeth Warren in December, seeking to cultivate the increasingly influential senator and to grapple with issues raised by a restive Democratic left, such as income inequality ... The two met at the Northwest Washington home of the Clintons, without aides and at Mrs. Clinton’s invitation ... Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren ... For Mrs. Clinton, it was a signal that she would prefer Ms. Warren’s counsel delivered in person, as a friendly insider, rather than on national television or in opinion articles ... Both Mrs. Clinton and her husband appeared eager to keep a close eye on Ms. Warren; Bill Clinton has appeared sensitive to her oblique criticism of his deregulation of financial institutions." http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/02/17/hillary-clinton-m...
(* It makes one wonder...does it not?)
Clinton Foundation and Foreign Donations (Helping the people of the World!) Washington Post:"In an extraordinary report that has not yet been fully digested, the Wall Street Journal tells us that the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has received millions from foreign governments including Qatar, a prominent backer of Hamas." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/02/18/foreign-don...
(* And what about the future of our "trickle-down" economy?)
Long-Term Effects of the Great Recession -- "The Congressional Budget Office has recently released projections of real (inflation adjusted) GDP growth through 2025. If these projections turn out to be correct, real GDP for the U.S. will never return to its pre-Great Recession growth path." http://econbrowser.com/archives/2015/02/guest-contribution-long-term-eff...
What's (Not) Up with Wage Growth? (The Fed) -- "In recent months, there's been plenty of discussion of the surprisingly sluggish growth in hourly wages ... Lower-than-normal wage growth appears to be a very widespread feature of the labor market since the end of the recession." http://macroblog.typepad.com/macroblog/2015/02/whats-not-up-with-wage-gr...
Have you seriously considered what would have happened to Social Security if what you suggest became a reality in 2008? Do we really want OUR money in the hands of Wall Street? These greedy bums are the ones that nearly brought the entire nation to its knees,with a little help from George W. Bush and his wholesale deregulation and supply side,slight of hand,voodoo economics on steroids.
I went to the attached link, and it showed a loose correlation between economic well being and living in a state which typically (or in the last election cycle - not clear which) votes for one party or the other.
That is interesting, but it doesn't answer the question as to which is the cause, and which is the effect, or even if a causal relationship exists.
For example, if you plot the number of murders in a community vs the number of MD's in a community, you see a strong correlation. The more doctors, the more murders.
In that case, there is no actual cause and effect relationship. Murders happen where there are lots of people, and Doctors congregate where there are lots of people. Even on a per capita basis, the correlation remains, as murders are predominantly an urban phenomenon, and MDs tend to disproportionally congregate in urban areas also.
Teasing out cause and effect from the data in the linked article would be rather difficult.
One of the problems is that the Republican party seems to be the uneasy abode of the social conservatives. And for many, this is the main concern which determines their political affiliation. In that regard, they attract a lot of Christians, who are (according to 1 Corinthians 1:27-28) the foolish, weak, and base things of this world. The idea is not that they are stupid, necessarily, but that they are the losers, misfits, and wannabes.
So where you have these people, regardless of policy, if the Bible is true, you will have social conservatives and low incomes.
While the Republican leadership views this constituency with a mixture of loathing and contempt, they recognize their importance. If the social conservatives all stay home, all of the red states would turn blue.
So getting back to the tax burden on the poor, it seems intuitive that if you are poor, you will pay a larger proportion of your income on (name the category) food, housing, education, health care, as that is what it means to be poor. Your entire income is consumed in meeting your expenses. You have no wealth (surplus) and no means to acquire wealth. -I was raised poor, I know how it works...
I suppose there is some income proportion paid in state and local taxes which represents basic equality. What I mean by that is, if the poor and the rich both pay these taxes in exact proportion to the benefits they receive, so they get the same value for a dollar spent. If taxation were based on that principle, the rich will obviously pay a smaller proportion of their income in state and local taxes.
For example (chosen for its relative simplicity) the property tax largely pays for elementary and secondary education. The poor, as a class, if they have as many children per capita as the rich, typically pay a good deal less for this, as their real estate is less valuable, but the cost of educating their children is the same or perhaps greater. So while the percent of income the poor pay in real estate taxes is higher than that of the rich, the value they receive per dollar spent is significantly higher. (Here we are omitting the societal benefits of an educated populace, and how the rich benefit from well educated wage-slaves, etc.)
My question is, to what extent should the tax burden on one economic group subsidize the provision of service to another?
Should (as an example) the monies paid for personal security and property security (police) be based on the value of property secured, or on the cost of providing that service? In the one case, the rich should pay much more, but in the other, significantly less.
I think it would be helpful to articulate what the desired state is.
To what extent should the rich subsidize the poor, and in what areas, and why?
The Next New Deal: "The rich may imagine that blaming them for the struggles of the rest of us is driven by envy, but that’s their own conceit to make them feel good. Americans don’t resent the rich. While we might fantasize about winning the lottery, we are not consumed by jealousy. What most Americans understand is that they are struggling financially because the wealthy have rigged the economic and political system to benefit them at the expense of the rest of us. That’s not envy: it’s reality."
Despite your personal insults, in the future I might use your comment in its entirety at my personal blog to rebut all your arguments. But for now, I'll leave you with this:
When people like Paul Ryan (and yourself) talk about "envy economics", I imagine you all might be describing rich people who feel envy towards someone richer than they are (The Joneses vs. the Smiths). Did you every hear of yacht envy? Most poor people don't envy the rich; if anything, they emulate them and want to be rich themselves (and they watch their silly reality shows on TV). They don't hate rich people, they only feel anger towards a few rich people who would spend so much time, energy (and money) to deny others such things as a living wage (or food stamps when they can't find work). Why would someone with so much, deliberately go out of their way to deny others who have so little? Nobody was talking about stealing a middle-class worker's home or small business with an estate tax. I was talking about multi-billionaires like the Walmart heirs, who pay their employees so little, and yet receive tax subsidies and hire temp workers just to save a dollar. How many generations must they fund into the future at the expense of those who are only trying to survive today? If everybody were paid a fair and living wage, the rich wouldn't need to be taxed as much. But they don't want to pay fair wages OR fair taxes — they want it all, for nothing. If slavery were still legal, billionaires like the Waltons would probably use slaves (and in a way, they already do in Asian countries like Vietnam and Cambodia). But thanks for your comment ;)
NOTE: The original version of the article at Medium.Com I linked to had an incorrect example of using a trust to minimize taxes. You can use a trust to shield assets from the estate tax, but you don’t also get step-up in basis on those assets.
As my longtime accountant and financial advisor (a conservative) has stated many times to me privately over the years..... "strip away all the social issues and partisan politics and put them aside.........................and then based on a purely economic level.............anyone who votes Republican who makes under 150 grand is absolutely VOTING AGAINST THEMSELVES."
Obama and Congress offer bogus rhetoric on tax reform (February 9, 2015 by David Cay Johnston)
"After decades of bogus proposals, how will we know when Washington begins to talk real tax reform, rather than more tax favors for the wealthy and politically connected? When they propose to scrap the whole system and start from scratch."
[My comment] Besides the fact that half the members of Congress are millionaires themselves (and benefit from the low capital gains tax rate), they already rate in the top 1% with their annual congressional salaries of $174,000 a year.
So it's hard to imagine they'd want to raise taxes on themselves. You can't even get them to raise the $118,500 income cap for Social Security payroll taxes because THEY TOO would have to pay more.
Congress works for themselves, not the American people. Even well-meaning "newbies" get quickly corrupted by the system after they are first elected — when humbleness is quickly replaced by narcissism.
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), a high ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, has reasonably asked to view an un-redacted copy of the proposed text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). He also wants to bring in his chief of staff, who has a top security clearance, to take notes privately. He also wants to review documents that show the position of each country participating in the agreements, as well how the U.S. position has changed over the course of the negotiations.”
The Trade Representative, Michael Froman, is dodging his request.
Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) wants Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) — a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and who once called for transparency and congressional participation in these trade negotiations — to co-sponsor Fast Track when Congress returns from next week’s recess.
I'm an "economic populist" offering opinions and making arguments. I'm not a research scientist just presenting raw "facts" ---- But like you said, "hurray for the factual content." I'll take that as a compliment.
In last month’s address, the president argued that his proposals would benefit “every middle-class and low-income family with young children” — as if there were no one in between. But in fact millions of families fall between the college-educated middle-class and the poor. They tend to be headed by people who have a diploma, but not a bachelor’s degree. In 2014, among all families with children under age 18, 54 percent were headed by an adult who had the first but not the second. A generation or two ago, those in this category supported their families by taking the industrial jobs that were plentiful, or by marrying someone who did. Today’s working class, in contrast, competes for the diminishing number of blue-collar jobs that haven’t yet been automated or outsourced. To lump these people together with the college-educated is to create a group that is so broad as to be meaningless.
[* The 2012 General Social Survey showed 44% defined themselves as "working-class" and 44% as "middle-class".]
In a 2012 Pew Research Center national survey, 38% thought that poverty was caused by a lack of individual effort, 46% said it was due to circumstances beyond a person’s control, and 11% thought both factors were involved. Politicians may prefer to call working-class families by the class position they aspire to rather than the one they hold.
Just 7% of private-sector workers now belong to unions. Yet high rates of union membership in the past appear to have lifted wages, not just for members, but also for non-union workers. To help the working class, government should take measures designed to bolster unions rather than weaken them. The working class would also benefit from an increase in the minimum wage, which was worth 22% less in purchasing power in 2012 than in 1970.
[* It seems that about half of those who defined themselves as "middle-class" were most likely "working-class" (aka "lower-middle-class") — but would rather not think of themselves that way. Or maybe they just don't realize how low on the income ladder they really are.]
Within the article are newsworthy facts, worth noting.
Why must the author attempt to qualify or comment on their appropriateness?
His/her comments appear more like a 'word snipers' attempt to discredit.
Hooray for the factual content!
If not raise the income cap, then tax capital gains -- but NOT fund from the general budget (Wouldn't sequester battles and budget cuts by Congress threaten SS benefits?)
PBS has an article -- America’s Ponzi scheme: Why Social Security Needs to Retire -- "Resolving Social Security’s insolvency requires either an immediate and permanent 32 percent increase in payroll taxes or an immediate and permanent 22 percent cut in all Social Security benefits."
I'm not sure if those numbers aren't grossly inflated, but that's why Senators such as Bernie Sanders proposes raising the income cap on payroll taxes.
(* As an aside: If PBS is publicly funded, how can I post a rebuttal to their article on their website?)
Good point about why the pols insist on funding retirement 75 years in advance but not other programs.
FDR's advisors opposed the regressive payroll tax and urged him to fund SS from the general budget instead, like any other government program. That makes more sense to me than the "raise the cap" proposal. Raising the cap would make FICA less regressive, but still regressive nonetheless. And we'd still be stuck with the imaginary actuarial insurance fund concept and all its limitations.
Mark Thoma: The number of young Americans living with their parents has grown over the last 15 years. Some have returned home after striking out on their own (earning the nickname "the boomerang generation"), while others never left at all.
65 percent of college graduates are showing up on their parents' doorsteps looking for free room and board while they're looking for work.
A new Federal Reserve Bank of New York staff report suggests the most important factor is the rising student debt of college graduates, which "appears to be driving young people home and keeping them there."
In 1999, approximately 30 percent of 25-year-olds lived with their parents — but by 2013 the percentage had risen to nearly 50 percent.
In addition, home ownership for 25-year-olds has fallen from approximately 23 percent in 2003 to just over 10 percent in 2013.
It has become more difficult for the young to get an education, strike out on their own, and not have to rely on their parents for support. And there's little reason to suspect this trend will end any time soon.
Econospeak, in response to a post by Dean Baker, in response to an article at the Washington Post -- where it says, "Spending on other vital activities (from defense to financial regulation) is being sacrificed to cover the growing costs of a graying nation." Dean Baker, in his post, had sarcastically mentioned defaulting on the national debt as one option. And Econospeak asks, "Effectively based on the law, cutting benefits to SS recipients amounts to a default on a promise; so is this better than defaulting on debt held by high income holders of that debt?" [I would have added, "Or to China?]
Off The Charts: SS disability's previous growth stems mostly from well-understood demographic factors.
1) The aging of the baby boomers into their 50s and 60s (peak ages for disability recipients)
2) The rise in women’s labor force participation (which means more women now qualify for benefits)
3) The rise in Social Security’s full retirement age (which delays disability beneficiaries’ reclassification as retired workers)
* But those pressures are easing, and the disability rolls have barely grown for the last two years.
Gallup's P2P metric tracks the percentage of the U.S. adult population aged 18 and older who are employed by an employer for at least 30 hours per week.
Gallop reports Workforce Participation at 66.7% (for 18 and older) --- and the BLS reports 62.9% (for 16 and older).
U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (the new chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee) says, “We have two people to be concerned about. One is the taxpayer. The other is the person receiving food stamps” — but also says a top priority of his committee is maintenance of the federal crop insurance program.
Question from the HuffPo Hill newsletter: "With states already cutting benefits for childless able-bodied adults -- the GOP's easiest target for the past few years -- what other population of the undeserving poor do Republicans have in mind?"
http://cjonline.com/news/state/2015-02-18/roberts-over-regulation-plague...
it's mostly because OPEC refused to cut output at their Thanksgiving meeting, so now everyone is producing to the hilt...
remember, the WTI oil price quotes are for light sweet oil at or delivered to the depot in Cushing Oklahoma; other prices may differ, depending on transportation costs, specific gravity and sulfur content…so in the last week of January, Williston Basin sweet crude from N. Dakota was quoted at $28.19 a barrel, while Williston sour had dropped down to $19.08 a barrel...
This is a canary in the coal mine...UNLESS, once again, it's just our HFT groups putting a yo-yo on. Key is physical supply as well. Remember in 2008 they had supply sitting on tankers way out at sea, "hidden"?
You realize what a killer team they would be together, that's a dream ticket in terms of Populist positions.
New York Times: Hillary Clinton, Privately, Seeks the Favor of Elizabeth Warren -- "Hillary Clinton held a private meeting with Senator Elizabeth Warren in December, seeking to cultivate the increasingly influential senator and to grapple with issues raised by a restive Democratic left, such as income inequality ... The two met at the Northwest Washington home of the Clintons, without aides and at Mrs. Clinton’s invitation ... Mrs. Clinton solicited policy ideas and suggestions from Ms. Warren ... For Mrs. Clinton, it was a signal that she would prefer Ms. Warren’s counsel delivered in person, as a friendly insider, rather than on national television or in opinion articles ... Both Mrs. Clinton and her husband appeared eager to keep a close eye on Ms. Warren; Bill Clinton has appeared sensitive to her oblique criticism of his deregulation of financial institutions."
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/02/17/hillary-clinton-m...
(* It makes one wonder...does it not?)
Clinton Foundation and Foreign Donations (Helping the people of the World!) Washington Post:"In an extraordinary report that has not yet been fully digested, the Wall Street Journal tells us that the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation has received millions from foreign governments including Qatar, a prominent backer of Hamas."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2015/02/18/foreign-don...
(* And what about the future of our "trickle-down" economy?)
Long-Term Effects of the Great Recession -- "The Congressional Budget Office has recently released projections of real (inflation adjusted) GDP growth through 2025. If these projections turn out to be correct, real GDP for the U.S. will never return to its pre-Great Recession growth path."
http://econbrowser.com/archives/2015/02/guest-contribution-long-term-eff...
What's (Not) Up with Wage Growth? (The Fed) -- "In recent months, there's been plenty of discussion of the surprisingly sluggish growth in hourly wages ... Lower-than-normal wage growth appears to be a very widespread feature of the labor market since the end of the recession."
http://macroblog.typepad.com/macroblog/2015/02/whats-not-up-with-wage-gr...
BLS: Labor force projections to 2022 -- "Falling participation rates will lower labor force growth to a projected 0.5 percent annually."
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/labor-force-projections-to-2022...
Have you seriously considered what would have happened to Social Security if what you suggest became a reality in 2008? Do we really want OUR money in the hands of Wall Street? These greedy bums are the ones that nearly brought the entire nation to its knees,with a little help from George W. Bush and his wholesale deregulation and supply side,slight of hand,voodoo economics on steroids.
I went to the attached link, and it showed a loose correlation between economic well being and living in a state which typically (or in the last election cycle - not clear which) votes for one party or the other.
That is interesting, but it doesn't answer the question as to which is the cause, and which is the effect, or even if a causal relationship exists.
For example, if you plot the number of murders in a community vs the number of MD's in a community, you see a strong correlation. The more doctors, the more murders.
In that case, there is no actual cause and effect relationship. Murders happen where there are lots of people, and Doctors congregate where there are lots of people. Even on a per capita basis, the correlation remains, as murders are predominantly an urban phenomenon, and MDs tend to disproportionally congregate in urban areas also.
Teasing out cause and effect from the data in the linked article would be rather difficult.
One of the problems is that the Republican party seems to be the uneasy abode of the social conservatives. And for many, this is the main concern which determines their political affiliation. In that regard, they attract a lot of Christians, who are (according to 1 Corinthians 1:27-28) the foolish, weak, and base things of this world. The idea is not that they are stupid, necessarily, but that they are the losers, misfits, and wannabes.
So where you have these people, regardless of policy, if the Bible is true, you will have social conservatives and low incomes.
While the Republican leadership views this constituency with a mixture of loathing and contempt, they recognize their importance. If the social conservatives all stay home, all of the red states would turn blue.
So getting back to the tax burden on the poor, it seems intuitive that if you are poor, you will pay a larger proportion of your income on (name the category) food, housing, education, health care, as that is what it means to be poor. Your entire income is consumed in meeting your expenses. You have no wealth (surplus) and no means to acquire wealth. -I was raised poor, I know how it works...
I suppose there is some income proportion paid in state and local taxes which represents basic equality. What I mean by that is, if the poor and the rich both pay these taxes in exact proportion to the benefits they receive, so they get the same value for a dollar spent. If taxation were based on that principle, the rich will obviously pay a smaller proportion of their income in state and local taxes.
For example (chosen for its relative simplicity) the property tax largely pays for elementary and secondary education. The poor, as a class, if they have as many children per capita as the rich, typically pay a good deal less for this, as their real estate is less valuable, but the cost of educating their children is the same or perhaps greater. So while the percent of income the poor pay in real estate taxes is higher than that of the rich, the value they receive per dollar spent is significantly higher. (Here we are omitting the societal benefits of an educated populace, and how the rich benefit from well educated wage-slaves, etc.)
My question is, to what extent should the tax burden on one economic group subsidize the provision of service to another?
Should (as an example) the monies paid for personal security and property security (police) be based on the value of property secured, or on the cost of providing that service? In the one case, the rich should pay much more, but in the other, significantly less.
I think it would be helpful to articulate what the desired state is.
To what extent should the rich subsidize the poor, and in what areas, and why?
AN UPDATE on my reply:
The Next New Deal: "The rich may imagine that blaming them for the struggles of the rest of us is driven by envy, but that’s their own conceit to make them feel good. Americans don’t resent the rich. While we might fantasize about winning the lottery, we are not consumed by jealousy. What most Americans understand is that they are struggling financially because the wealthy have rigged the economic and political system to benefit them at the expense of the rest of us. That’s not envy: it’s reality."
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/politics-responsibility-%E2%80%93-not-envy
===================
Despite your personal insults, in the future I might use your comment in its entirety at my personal blog to rebut all your arguments. But for now, I'll leave you with this:
When people like Paul Ryan (and yourself) talk about "envy economics", I imagine you all might be describing rich people who feel envy towards someone richer than they are (The Joneses vs. the Smiths). Did you every hear of yacht envy? Most poor people don't envy the rich; if anything, they emulate them and want to be rich themselves (and they watch their silly reality shows on TV). They don't hate rich people, they only feel anger towards a few rich people who would spend so much time, energy (and money) to deny others such things as a living wage (or food stamps when they can't find work). Why would someone with so much, deliberately go out of their way to deny others who have so little? Nobody was talking about stealing a middle-class worker's home or small business with an estate tax. I was talking about multi-billionaires like the Walmart heirs, who pay their employees so little, and yet receive tax subsidies and hire temp workers just to save a dollar. How many generations must they fund into the future at the expense of those who are only trying to survive today? If everybody were paid a fair and living wage, the rich wouldn't need to be taxed as much. But they don't want to pay fair wages OR fair taxes — they want it all, for nothing. If slavery were still legal, billionaires like the Waltons would probably use slaves (and in a way, they already do in Asian countries like Vietnam and Cambodia). But thanks for your comment ;)
NOTE: The original version of the article at Medium.Com I linked to had an incorrect example of using a trust to minimize taxes. You can use a trust to shield assets from the estate tax, but you don’t also get step-up in basis on those assets.
https://medium.com/bull-market/the-tax-loophole-almost-everyone-should-w...
As my longtime accountant and financial advisor (a conservative) has stated many times to me privately over the years..... "strip away all the social issues and partisan politics and put them aside.........................and then based on a purely economic level.............anyone who votes Republican who makes under 150 grand is absolutely VOTING AGAINST THEMSELVES."
I guess stupid is as stupid does.
Obama and Congress offer bogus rhetoric on tax reform (February 9, 2015 by David Cay Johnston)
"After decades of bogus proposals, how will we know when Washington begins to talk real tax reform, rather than more tax favors for the wealthy and politically connected? When they propose to scrap the whole system and start from scratch."
[My comment] Besides the fact that half the members of Congress are millionaires themselves (and benefit from the low capital gains tax rate), they already rate in the top 1% with their annual congressional salaries of $174,000 a year.
So it's hard to imagine they'd want to raise taxes on themselves. You can't even get them to raise the $118,500 income cap for Social Security payroll taxes because THEY TOO would have to pay more.
Congress works for themselves, not the American people. Even well-meaning "newbies" get quickly corrupted by the system after they are first elected — when humbleness is quickly replaced by narcissism.
"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/2/obama-and-congress-offer-bo...
Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), a high ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, has reasonably asked to view an un-redacted copy of the proposed text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). He also wants to bring in his chief of staff, who has a top security clearance, to take notes privately. He also wants to review documents that show the position of each country participating in the agreements, as well how the U.S. position has changed over the course of the negotiations.”
The Trade Representative, Michael Froman, is dodging his request.
Meanwhile, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) wants Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) — a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and who once called for transparency and congressional participation in these trade negotiations — to co-sponsor Fast Track when Congress returns from next week’s recess.
I'm an "economic populist" offering opinions and making arguments. I'm not a research scientist just presenting raw "facts" ---- But like you said, "hurray for the factual content." I'll take that as a compliment.
Washington Post:
In last month’s address, the president argued that his proposals would benefit “every middle-class and low-income family with young children” — as if there were no one in between. But in fact millions of families fall between the college-educated middle-class and the poor. They tend to be headed by people who have a diploma, but not a bachelor’s degree. In 2014, among all families with children under age 18, 54 percent were headed by an adult who had the first but not the second. A generation or two ago, those in this category supported their families by taking the industrial jobs that were plentiful, or by marrying someone who did. Today’s working class, in contrast, competes for the diminishing number of blue-collar jobs that haven’t yet been automated or outsourced. To lump these people together with the college-educated is to create a group that is so broad as to be meaningless.
[* The 2012 General Social Survey showed 44% defined themselves as "working-class" and 44% as "middle-class".]
In a 2012 Pew Research Center national survey, 38% thought that poverty was caused by a lack of individual effort, 46% said it was due to circumstances beyond a person’s control, and 11% thought both factors were involved. Politicians may prefer to call working-class families by the class position they aspire to rather than the one they hold.
Just 7% of private-sector workers now belong to unions. Yet high rates of union membership in the past appear to have lifted wages, not just for members, but also for non-union workers. To help the working class, government should take measures designed to bolster unions rather than weaken them. The working class would also benefit from an increase in the minimum wage, which was worth 22% less in purchasing power in 2012 than in 1970.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-missing-working-class/2015/02...
[* It seems that about half of those who defined themselves as "middle-class" were most likely "working-class" (aka "lower-middle-class") — but would rather not think of themselves that way. Or maybe they just don't realize how low on the income ladder they really are.]
Within the article are newsworthy facts, worth noting.
Why must the author attempt to qualify or comment on their appropriateness?
His/her comments appear more like a 'word snipers' attempt to discredit.
Hooray for the factual content!
If not raise the income cap, then tax capital gains -- but NOT fund from the general budget (Wouldn't sequester battles and budget cuts by Congress threaten SS benefits?)
PBS has an article -- America’s Ponzi scheme: Why Social Security Needs to Retire -- "Resolving Social Security’s insolvency requires either an immediate and permanent 32 percent increase in payroll taxes or an immediate and permanent 22 percent cut in all Social Security benefits."
I'm not sure if those numbers aren't grossly inflated, but that's why Senators such as Bernie Sanders proposes raising the income cap on payroll taxes.
(* As an aside: If PBS is publicly funded, how can I post a rebuttal to their article on their website?)
Good point about why the pols insist on funding retirement 75 years in advance but not other programs.
FDR's advisors opposed the regressive payroll tax and urged him to fund SS from the general budget instead, like any other government program. That makes more sense to me than the "raise the cap" proposal. Raising the cap would make FICA less regressive, but still regressive nonetheless. And we'd still be stuck with the imaginary actuarial insurance fund concept and all its limitations.
Mark Thoma: The number of young Americans living with their parents has grown over the last 15 years. Some have returned home after striking out on their own (earning the nickname "the boomerang generation"), while others never left at all.
65 percent of college graduates are showing up on their parents' doorsteps looking for free room and board while they're looking for work.
A new Federal Reserve Bank of New York staff report suggests the most important factor is the rising student debt of college graduates, which "appears to be driving young people home and keeping them there."
In 1999, approximately 30 percent of 25-year-olds lived with their parents — but by 2013 the percentage had risen to nearly 50 percent.
In addition, home ownership for 25-year-olds has fallen from approximately 23 percent in 2003 to just over 10 percent in 2013.
It has become more difficult for the young to get an education, strike out on their own, and not have to rely on their parents for support. And there's little reason to suspect this trend will end any time soon.
Econospeak, in response to a post by Dean Baker, in response to an article at the Washington Post -- where it says, "Spending on other vital activities (from defense to financial regulation) is being sacrificed to cover the growing costs of a graying nation." Dean Baker, in his post, had sarcastically mentioned defaulting on the national debt as one option. And Econospeak asks, "Effectively based on the law, cutting benefits to SS recipients amounts to a default on a promise; so is this better than defaulting on debt held by high income holders of that debt?" [I would have added, "Or to China?]
I'd suggest reading through all three articles...
Off The Charts: SS disability's previous growth stems mostly from well-understood demographic factors.
* But those pressures are easing, and the disability rolls have barely grown for the last two years.
Gallup's P2P metric tracks the percentage of the U.S. adult population aged 18 and older who are employed by an employer for at least 30 hours per week.
Gallop reports Workforce Participation at 66.7% (for 18 and older) --- and the BLS reports 62.9% (for 16 and older).
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