The old poverty measure was already indexed to the CPI. The new measure, called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, is indexed to spending of households at the 33rd percentile. Allowing the poverty threshold to increase in real terms (i.e., faster than inflation) as general living standards rise was an explicit design goal.
As I pointed out there, your description of Rector's methodology is totally wrong. Quoting from the first page of the document:
The means-tested welfare system consists of 79 federal programs providing cash, food, housing, medical care, social services, training, and targeted education aid to poor and low income Americans. Means-tested welfare programs differ from general government programs in two ways. First, they provide aid exclusively to persons (or communities) with low incomes; second, individuals do not need to earn eligibility for benefits through prior fiscal contributions. Means-tested welfare therefore does not include Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, or worker’s compensation.
Bolding mine. So right there we know that he's not assuming that this hypothetical family of four is drawing the maximum Social Security benefit.
The total of $927 billion per year in means-tested aid is an enormous sum of money. One way to think about this figure is that $927 billion amounts to $19,082 for each American defined as “poor” by the Census. However, since some means-tested assistance goes to individuals who are low income but not poor, a more meaningful figure is that total means-tested aid equals $9,040 for each lower income American (i.e., persons in the lowest income third of the population).
What's $9,040 time four? $36,160. If the average low-income family of four makes $8,000 per year, well, that means...
If converted to cash, means-tested welfare spending is more than sufficient to bring the income of every lower income American to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, roughly $44,000 per year for a family of four. (This calculation combines potential welfare aid with non-welfare income currently received by the poor.)
I don't see anything in here that supports your claim that he's making any assumptions about drawing the maximum possible benefit from every single means-tested program. In fact, I'm fairly certain that you would get a sum much larger than $44,000 if you did that.
Or perhaps I should restate that: One aspect of the growth in income inequality within the US is the divergence between the median income and incomes at the high end. The cultural decline of the lower classes doesn't obviously explain this.
I haven't kept up with every comment on every post, but I was under the impression that this symposium was largely about the divergence between the median and the high end.
While I agree that the left has an enormous blind spot with respect to the causes of poverty, this cultural problems of the lower classes don't really explain the lackluster growth in median income, since those problems are largely confined to those who would have wound up below the median anyway.
I apologize for taking that the wrong way. The reason I did is that it's not at all unusual for leftists to suggest with more than a hint of glee that if the rich don't agree to more redistribution there's going to be a violent rebellion.
That said, I should have given you the benefit of the doubt, given that you haven't in the past given me reason to believe that you're that kind of person, or really even that far to the left.
Looking back at the threads at the time, you're right---there doesn't seem to have been a lot of the manufactured outrage that I was seeing from the left elsewhere. I apologize for assuming otherwise.
That said, I do take a pretty dim view of the "You'd better agree to more redistribution or there will be blood" argument.
Um, yeah. That's what I said. That would be a conflict regarding the terms of the marriage agreement. Barring a prenuptial agreement, people going into a marriage don't spell out the terms of dissolution in advance, so there's a need for arbitration.
An example of the kind of situation where there's not a legitimate need for arbitration would if an employer offers someone a $5/hour job and he accepts it, but some random busybody objects. Or a situation where I want the rich guy down the street to pay my health insurance premium but he doesn't want to.
The punch line, for those who can't be bothered: The sentence Snarky quoted was part of an argument against regulations compelling the formation of trade unions.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
So I heard about this thing called context. Apparently it's kind of important. Sometimes it can completely change the meaning of cherry-picked sentences.
No, the whole point of judges is to provide arbitration when there's a conflict between two or more parties resulting either from a unilateral aggression or disagreement regarding the proper interpretation of the terms of an agreement. It's not to second-guess or regulate private, voluntary agreements and decisions.
First, this must be a suburban thing. National chain restaurants are greatly outnumbered by local chains and one-offs in every major city I've lived in or visited. But comparing the results of "restaurant" searches on Google Maps in urban and suburban areas confirms this.
Second, it's not clear to me that inequality is at all responsible for this. National chains succeed because the kind of people who like the kind of food they serve can afford to do so on a regular basis. My grandparents could afford better, but their favorite restaurant was Red Lobster.
Furthermore, the backlash against chains has arisen during a time of high and rising rising income inequality, so your explanation is counterintuitive to say the least.
Ditto music. Personally, I don't like much modern popular music, but people likes what they likes. This is hardly new---there was plenty of insipid music getting airtime back in the '50s. But the indie music scene is as strong as it's ever been. That's partly due to the internet, but where I live, there are live bands playing every night of the week.
Libertarian philosophy posits the “economic man,” a rational creature who maximizes his own welfare with his very decision.
While this isn't strictly speaking a strawman, since there are some libertarians who maintain this, human irrationality actually bolsters the argument for less government control. Even though people are sometimes irrational when making economic decisions, they're far more irrational when making political decisions. People pay a price for economic irrationality, but political irrationality is virtually costless since elections are virtually never decided by one vote. So people often at least try to make rational private decisions, but when it comes to politics they usually just go with whatever feels good*.
Because of this, it makes sense to favor keeping important decisions in the private sphere, rather than in the political sphere. There are cases where this may be impractical, but on the margin human irrationality bolsters, rather than weakens, the case for libertarianism.
*If you don't believe that this is true of the people on your side, think about the people on the other side, and remember that they win about half of the elections.
I'm fairly certain that it means "I would prefer to discredit libertarians and conservatives by smearing them rather than by addressing the substance of their arguments."
To some extent, income redistribution already does this. If talent and beauty cause you to make more money, the government will tax you more heavily, and use it to subsidize those who make less money, who are disproportionately less attractive and talented. The problem is that there's no way to disentangle the effects of natural endowments and hard work. When we tax based on income, we're taxing some combination of natural endowments and effort. When we subsidize those with low income, we're subsidizing some combination of unenviable endowments and sloth.
We also don't even attempt to tax the nonpecuniary benefits of natural endowments or the drawbacks of lacking them. We don't tax the good-looking or socially gifted men who get laid a lot while slacking off and working part time at a record shop, but we do tax the hell out of the ugly nerd who makes good money but doesn't have a girlfriend.
I'm fairly certain that James isn't in the top 1% of income earners. But you asssume he is, even though he's given no indication of such. Is that beacuse you just can't conceive of the possibility that anyone might disagree with your childish "Fish You, Give Me Yours" ideology for any reason other than greed?
That link reminds me of a thought I had had a while back, which is that status-jockeying is a constant, and if we restrict people's ability to compete for status based on income, they'll find other, less productive ways to compete for status. At least competition for income-based status has beneficial side effects.
On “Inequality by Half Measures”
The old poverty measure was already indexed to the CPI. The new measure, called the Supplemental Poverty Measure, is indexed to spending of households at the 33rd percentile. Allowing the poverty threshold to increase in real terms (i.e., faster than inflation) as general living standards rise was an explicit design goal.
"
The original discussion was this thread.
As I pointed out there, your description of Rector's methodology is totally wrong. Quoting from the first page of the document:
Bolding mine. So right there we know that he's not assuming that this hypothetical family of four is drawing the maximum Social Security benefit.
What's $9,040 time four? $36,160. If the average low-income family of four makes $8,000 per year, well, that means...
I don't see anything in here that supports your claim that he's making any assumptions about drawing the maximum possible benefit from every single means-tested program. In fact, I'm fairly certain that you would get a sum much larger than $44,000 if you did that.
On “There Is No 99%”
Oh, hey, look! A critic of libertarianism who doesn't have a clue what libertarianism is. This is a novelty indeed!
On “On putting heads on pikes… or not”
Or perhaps I should restate that: One aspect of the growth in income inequality within the US is the divergence between the median income and incomes at the high end. The cultural decline of the lower classes doesn't obviously explain this.
"
I haven't kept up with every comment on every post, but I was under the impression that this symposium was largely about the divergence between the median and the high end.
"
While I agree that the left has an enormous blind spot with respect to the causes of poverty, this cultural problems of the lower classes don't really explain the lackluster growth in median income, since those problems are largely confined to those who would have wound up below the median anyway.
"
I think I am having trouble keeping track of who represents what in these metaphors.
I submit that extended analogies are almost always counterproductive.
"
I can't speak for b-psycho, but what I don't get is why there's an excerpt from Catcher in the Rye there.
"
I apologize for taking that the wrong way. The reason I did is that it's not at all unusual for leftists to suggest with more than a hint of glee that if the rich don't agree to more redistribution there's going to be a violent rebellion.
That said, I should have given you the benefit of the doubt, given that you haven't in the past given me reason to believe that you're that kind of person, or really even that far to the left.
On “The Ant and the Grasshopper : An Inequality Fable”
Looking back at the threads at the time, you're right---there doesn't seem to have been a lot of the manufactured outrage that I was seeing from the left elsewhere. I apologize for assuming otherwise.
That said, I do take a pretty dim view of the "You'd better agree to more redistribution or there will be blood" argument.
"
How many people who think that this is awesome thought that Sarah Palin's crosshairs ad was beyond the pale?
On “Inequality and Human Flourishing”
Um, yeah. That's what I said. That would be a conflict regarding the terms of the marriage agreement. Barring a prenuptial agreement, people going into a marriage don't spell out the terms of dissolution in advance, so there's a need for arbitration.
An example of the kind of situation where there's not a legitimate need for arbitration would if an employer offers someone a $5/hour job and he accepts it, but some random busybody objects. Or a situation where I want the rich guy down the street to pay my health insurance premium but he doesn't want to.
"
The punch line, for those who can't be bothered: The sentence Snarky quoted was part of an argument against regulations compelling the formation of trade unions.
"
So I heard about this thing called context. Apparently it's kind of important. Sometimes it can completely change the meaning of cherry-picked sentences.
"
No, the whole point of judges is to provide arbitration when there's a conflict between two or more parties resulting either from a unilateral aggression or disagreement regarding the proper interpretation of the terms of an agreement. It's not to second-guess or regulate private, voluntary agreements and decisions.
On “How Inequality Harms”
First, this must be a suburban thing. National chain restaurants are greatly outnumbered by local chains and one-offs in every major city I've lived in or visited. But comparing the results of "restaurant" searches on Google Maps in urban and suburban areas confirms this.
Second, it's not clear to me that inequality is at all responsible for this. National chains succeed because the kind of people who like the kind of food they serve can afford to do so on a regular basis. My grandparents could afford better, but their favorite restaurant was Red Lobster.
Furthermore, the backlash against chains has arisen during a time of high and rising rising income inequality, so your explanation is counterintuitive to say the least.
Ditto music. Personally, I don't like much modern popular music, but people likes what they likes. This is hardly new---there was plenty of insipid music getting airtime back in the '50s. But the indie music scene is as strong as it's ever been. That's partly due to the internet, but where I live, there are live bands playing every night of the week.
On “Entertaining Inequality”
Why is he bowling with a basketball?
On “Inequality and Human Flourishing”
Libertarian philosophy posits the “economic man,” a rational creature who maximizes his own welfare with his very decision.
While this isn't strictly speaking a strawman, since there are some libertarians who maintain this, human irrationality actually bolsters the argument for less government control. Even though people are sometimes irrational when making economic decisions, they're far more irrational when making political decisions. People pay a price for economic irrationality, but political irrationality is virtually costless since elections are virtually never decided by one vote. So people often at least try to make rational private decisions, but when it comes to politics they usually just go with whatever feels good*.
Because of this, it makes sense to favor keeping important decisions in the private sphere, rather than in the political sphere. There are cases where this may be impractical, but on the margin human irrationality bolsters, rather than weakens, the case for libertarianism.
*If you don't believe that this is true of the people on your side, think about the people on the other side, and remember that they win about half of the elections.
On “Entertaining Inequality”
If FYIGM has any meaning...
I'm fairly certain that it means "I would prefer to discredit libertarians and conservatives by smearing them rather than by addressing the substance of their arguments."
On “Dance 10, Looks 3 – Inequality of Talent and Looks”
To some extent, income redistribution already does this. If talent and beauty cause you to make more money, the government will tax you more heavily, and use it to subsidize those who make less money, who are disproportionately less attractive and talented. The problem is that there's no way to disentangle the effects of natural endowments and hard work. When we tax based on income, we're taxing some combination of natural endowments and effort. When we subsidize those with low income, we're subsidizing some combination of unenviable endowments and sloth.
We also don't even attempt to tax the nonpecuniary benefits of natural endowments or the drawbacks of lacking them. We don't tax the good-looking or socially gifted men who get laid a lot while slacking off and working part time at a record shop, but we do tax the hell out of the ugly nerd who makes good money but doesn't have a girlfriend.
On “Entertaining Inequality”
raw naked power
I like to think that somewhere in the world there's an association of nudist vegans who uses this as their slogan.
"
I'm fairly certain that James isn't in the top 1% of income earners. But you asssume he is, even though he's given no indication of such. Is that beacuse you just can't conceive of the possibility that anyone might disagree with your childish "Fish You, Give Me Yours" ideology for any reason other than greed?
"
That link reminds me of a thought I had had a while back, which is that status-jockeying is a constant, and if we restrict people's ability to compete for status based on income, they'll find other, less productive ways to compete for status. At least competition for income-based status has beneficial side effects.
"
Was I not clear when I said I stand by my comment?
"
I'm not sure I follow. How would that work, in concrete terms? Would they be forced to admit new teams?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.