The Shrinking Pay Gap
Posted on: July 22, 2012 - 9:33am
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The Shrinking Pay Gap
New numbers from the CBO showing income levels from 2007-2009 show that the dreaded pay gap in the US is shrunk at a rapid rate. So while our economy tanks because of the incompetence of our elected leaders you can take comfort in the fact that the rich are no longer getting richer and are in fact getting poorer faster than anyone. We can finally get rid of that horrible income inequality problem.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48257611
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That's not a significantly shrinking pay gap. And its their own fault for hoarding.
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A very huge amount of money is in off shore accounts - true? So are these graphs based on claimed income minus said off shore monies? Or is it the some total including off shore monies?
If the off shore money is not included in this graphic, then I don't believe it is likely that the income gap is shrinking. Note the highest quintile is definitely not shrunken. I'm guessing that if you included off shore monies, the top 1% is far from shrinking.
I could be wrong -
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It solely includes income reported on income taxes, not assets. So it includes any income from foreign assets that is repatriated. Calculations of net worth are extremely difficult because nothing requires billionaires to record the gain and loss of assets until they actually sell them. Some billionaires have suffered very public losses, like Warren Buffet for example was estimated to be worth over $62 billion in 2008 is now estimated to be worth only $39 billion according to Forbes. Of course, how much he has in assets that is not included and may have fared better or worse won't be known until he dies and his beneficiaries liquidate the estate. However, since rich people own more houses (few of the non-rich own more than one or two) in wealthier areas (the areas hit hardest by the real estate collapse) it is probable that they lost substantially more in gross net worth.
However, despite having more gross money lost it is also probable that most of the wealthy have a much smaller percentage of their total net worth tied to real estate except for those who invest heavily in commercial real estate, so it is possible that their total net worth fell by a smaller percentage than the middle class. Although the difference in the losses might be made up by the wealthy invested in GM getting totally screwed and the number who were on the losing end of all the banks that got shut down so maybe they did lose more, hard to say. Simply put, there is no real way to know for sure how much net worth was lost. Probably the most accurate information we have is the census, but until we have data from another one we are stuck with old data. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0717.pdf
And the census has the obvious weakness of having to rely on self reporting. I'm not sure how honest millionaires and billionaires tend to be when filling out census forms.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Assuming the statistics are to be trusted, the highest quintiles actually clearly were shrunk, and considering that this happened in two years it is quite significant. This is of course relies on the statistics accuracy.
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I love you Beyond you are such a fucking joke, "I have to live in two mansions instead 5, and instead of caviar in a private jet I flew first class and ate microwaved lobster"
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Err.. that would be a step in the right direction though, right? Wealth distribution won't change rapidly without use of force anyway imo.
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bingo! you get the motherfucking gold star for the day. that's the smartest comment i've seen on here in a loooooong time.
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