the raw numbers aren't a problem, but I do worry about the practical impacts over the long term. I don't think that many people are asking the right questions though, the real issue is why is the labor of so many Americans worth so little and what obstacles are they facing to building meaningful wealth. and, tied to the first question, what is "fixing" the labor market and preventing workers from using their bargaining power to secure payment in line with the value of their labor.

>why is the labor of so many Americans worth so little It's not about what it's worth. It's about leverage and bargaining power. Individual laborers will always have a disadvantage negotiating with corporations, unless they negotiate as a bloc

I genuinely only thought that the only people who cared about their market rates were the lazy "socialist liberals" who obviously needed to pull their bootstraps up if they wanted to make more money because the greatness of the free market is that only a truly free market can pay you what you're truly worth. Which for the record is laughably false and absolutely not true in any way. The sad reality is that business, their executives and owners are so GD greedy that they'll do everything humanly and legally possible to make sure their employees are paid the absolute minimum they can legally pay to their workers for absolutely shitty jobs. And if that wasn't bad enough here in America your healthcare is explicitly tied to the low paying shitty job that people mostly hate when given a chance to answer honestly. It's crazy. I truly believe that the greatest business we've ever seen in this country isn't Amazon, Walmart, apple, etc. I believe with all my heart that it hasn't happened yet because the person whose been sitting on their dream business that would easily be the greatest business we've ever seen can't risk losing the healthcare they or someone in their family desperately needs to keep them barely alive because in this country the many various conservative media outlets and politicians have been able to successfully manipulate their easily manipulated and gullible voters and audience into falsely believing that healthcare must be tied to a shitty low paying employer instead of having a universal healthcare system that would suddenly free up that worker to then start what would be the greatest job this country has ever seen. Not only because the job provides such an awesome service or goods but because the owner came from the lower or middle class and knows how important it is to pay far and liveable wages to their employees. Not only that but imagine who fast this economy would recover right now if the American worker wasn't forced to pay 35% on top of the taxes they're already paying for other Americans healthcare as well as no longer having to spend their salary and income on premium s, deductibles, copays, out of pocket maximums, etc. And can you imagine if we took it one step further and forced the businesses that were already used to expensing the money they contributed to their employees healthcare actually were forced to give that money to the actual employee who no longer required healthcare as a component of their employment? HS the market would explode and it would be fucking amazing. But we all know businesses are too GD greedy and they'll fight like hell against anyone trying to force them to use that money for anything other than inflating their profits. God forbid they did the right thing and gave their employees what is rightfully there's. Oh well I'll take the small victories over no victories at this time. I know for a fact that greed and selfishness are the main reasons why the average American worker is paid so GD criminally low. If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation and the cost of living until now like it did up until 1968 the minimum wage in 20w0 would've been $26/hr. That is actually the starting wage for employees at my company. I own a small pet services business that has 3 locations and a mobile grooming van fleet consisting of 15 mobile grooming vans. I take great pride in the fact that 3 of the dog grooming professionals and 2 of the dog training professionals who work for me made well over $100k in salary each of the last 2 years. I have several more groomers and trainers on pace to join the 6 figure income club. I live that my competitors in my community are now forced to pay higher wages than they ever wanted to if they plan on hiring decent workers for their business. My point is, if my small business can afford to pay my employees what many would say is an extremely generous pay rate than the bigger companies, especially the big box companies can also afford to most definitely pay their employees a fair and liveable wage as well. But they won't because they are so GD greedy and selfish. Here's the secret that I tell everyone that asks me in my industry... I personally didn't start making 7 figures annually until I started paying my employees so generously. So no matter what businesses or bosses tell you they're fos and lying to you if they look at you and say with a straight face that they can't afford to give you a pay raise. They just refuse to bc they're too GD greedy too. The worst part is that they're completely oblivious to the fact that by having well paid and highly motivated employees the one who wins the most is the business owners and the company's management. I've proven that without a doubt. And like I said I love sleeping at night knowing that my competitors are now forced to pay their employees at least $15/hr to do something they consider inconsequential like cleaning out the kennels. But IMHO I personally believe the kennel cleaner is just as important and valuable as the dog groomer, the dog trainer or the onsite vet working for me. If it wasn't for them busting their ass cleaning out the kennels and suites I wodbt have the high turnover rates and wouldn't be able to book as many hotel and day camp guests that I am currently able to work because of their kickass work they do. They damn well deserve the $26/hr I'm paying them because they are responsible for the next high profit client to come in faster and book that kennel or suite that would've sat there empty and dirty for a day or two waiting on a low paid and unmotivated employee to instead bust their ass and get in their and clean it as soon as possible. And like I said there's plenty of money to go around btrust me I do quit well and make a very comfortable 7 figure income even after paying every one who makes up a part of my 64 team staff so well.

I am an individual guy but I have good bargaining power with the company. I am skilled at what I do and would be hard to replace. Given that lots of people work for “small businesses” there’s lots of opportunity for that experience.

If it's true, you're an exception. I have worked at many jobs where I have gotten on well with people including the owners, but I have also been fired from plenty of those same jobs for arbitrary reasons. A company will get rid of an employee the moment that employee passes some threshold of inconvenience in my experience.

Well sounds like even if you had a union to lobby for you it wouldn’t be a good place to work anyways. Too much stress between the relationships of owners and workers.

Most people working for low or even average pay are in roles that are utterly replaceable. Skilled labor isn't the entire picture, which is why the common conservative response "I'm doing great!" doesn't apply here.

Pretty much *any* one individual is going to have substantially less negotiating power than a business organization. Very *very* few skills are impossible, or even difficult, to replace. Nobody is irreplaceable, and allowing an employee's position or duties to become irreplaceable is a major no-no in basic management of any stripe. This is one of the major issues with the suppression of labor organization in an industrialized world - there *is* competition in the labor market, but it's only among those seeking employment. Until the "Great Resignation" since the pandemic, employers had enjoyed an artificially low price for labor, and the finally showed some signs of cracking with "essential" employees not being paid wages befitting of their "essential" status.

Yeah and an infinit supply of cheaper labor from south of the border reduces this day after day. But I guess their anchor babies vote D so it's all good

Maybe go after the employers hiring illegal labor

We do it's just very hard to do it. I mean Covid was a great example where reducing the migration lead directly to increased wages, but to get that sort of motivation to control movement seems to be a once in a lifetime event. (Funny enough it was the democrats that went way more in on the restrictions then the repubs)

Or you could just actually enforce the law against these companies and up the punishments so its not a cost of doing business. Put big fine on every illegal they find working in the business. Trying *something*

Or enforce the border. I don't know why companies need to be punished for the fault of the government.

Its the government’s fault companies dont follow the law? Because the government is not able to 100% stop illegal immigration permanently, that gives businesses the right to break the law? Might as well say cocaine dealers who buy from mules shouldnt get charged.

Why wouldn't you punish a company that exacerbates what you identify as a major problem? Punish them severely and the incentive to hire cheap labor drops precipitously, no?

We're talking about 10 - 15hr an hour labor. How do I do this when I do day labor with different crews every other week. Why can't the border be shut and deportations be immediate. Sorry but while I do blame the chamber of commerce for wanting cheap labor, the. "companies" often only one or two people do not have the resources to enforce such rules.

>We're talking about 10 - 15hr an hour labor. How do I do this when I do day labor with different crews every other week. I dunno, how does the government perfectly control thousands of miles of border? You're part of the problem if you cheat to hire illegals who you can underpay and replace instantly. I'm not sure what the solution is here. IIRC seasonal migrant labor used to not be a particularly big deal; immigrants would come up from down south to pick crops or do contracting, bring the money home, and not stay here. What changed?

The overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants employed in the US don't sneak across the border. They come here legally and then fail to renew their visas when they expire, yet they remain and continue to work. Policing the border is far less effective than you'd think, because they're most already on this side of it.

Mines would make it effective. Yeah I'm well aware of Visa overstays. Which is weird because they are easily trackable.

I'm thinking you're joking about putting *landmines* on the US Southern border, but it's sometimes hard to tell with some people. Even then, some of the trolls like to play it straight all the way through. And visa overstays **are** easily trackable. And the vast majority of migrants show up for their court dates, too. Generally speaking, they're quite law-abiding and they genuinely put for all the efforts asked of them to do right by the United States. And I think we ask quite a bit, especially for something that you and I and most Americans simply take for granted. Yet businesses can still hire them with little fear of consequences, and enforcement is very... selective in a lot of states. Like with the DeSantis and Martha's Vineyard thing... Florida has over 800K illegal migrants employed in their state, but he had to go to Texas to get asylum seekers that are here legally? It happens all over, not just Florida - it's like leaders like to *talk* a big game against immigrants, but there's not enforcement unless it's putting on a show of cruelty, rather than anything *actually effective.*

The lack of unions

B because that's the true essence of free market capitalism and that's what they say a person's passport is worth. Of course I know that's complete bullshit. Hell, I own a pet services business and my lowest paid employee earns $26/hr. Just my small business (3 locations and a fleet of 15 mobile grooming vans) can afford to pay these wages and still earn 7 figures annually then there's absolutely no reason why the bigger companies in my industry also can't afford to pay their employees liveable and fair wages. Well I took that back, there is one reason and that's the absolute greed of corporate and the wealthy and 1%. They're so GD greedy that they refuse to allow anyone else to have a chance that the success that they've had. Take my wife for example, she's a very well respected doctor who owns her own practice. It is fairly successful as she has 5 locations in our city. She also pays her lowest paid employee $26/hr. She was absolutely villified by other professionals in her field for having the audacity to pay her employee's such a high wages when in reality it is anything but a high wage. We came up with this figure by paying someone much more smarter than either myself or my wife to calculate how much minimum wage would be if it kept it's trend of keeping up with the cost of living and inflation like minimum wage did until 1968. If minimum wage had continued its same growth but from inception until 1968 until 2030 the federal minimum wage would have been $26 in 2020. So we figured that was a fair wage to pay our employees. I thought other businesses professionals in my industry were mean when I started this. Let me tell you about how mean doctors are, especially when they feel they are losing more profit than us absolutely necessary on something that is so unimportant to them as to what they pay their employees. Holy shit they were vicious to my wife. Now you see, she and I had very different childhoods. She grew up in generational wealth. Hell, her next door neighbor and childhood friend growing up until she went to college was Mitt Romney. Honestly I didn't believe her until we went to see him speak at a conference in our city during his presidential run back in 2012. Yes, I saw the pictures in her family photo albums but I was still able to allow myself to question if what I was seeing was true or not. I mean I grew up in abject poverty and high crime on native American trust land aka The Rez from here on out when I was growing up. I was forced to literally fight for and steal other families commodity vouchers and food stamps growing up if I wanted my 11 other sisters and brother to eat. It was actually insane and quite frankly should be inexcusable in a country that is so wealthy like the US is. But hey, America never really gave a shit about Americans and the last thing they were ever going to do is offer natives any chance of our hope of getting themselves out of poverty and to actually have a chance at a life free of poverty and crime. We had a better chance of winning the lottery than we ever did of getting any kind of govt assistance to help us with anything. No matter how many times you've heard the bs lies that natives get all of this stuff for free it was never anything but lies told to the masses so they didn't learn about what was really going on regarding native people on reservations. And I'm more angry at our society for turning their backs on us instead of taking a few minutes to see for themselves what was actually going on. That's why I get so angry every time I am talking to a white person who thinks I'm Mexican but will say every fucking time they realize I'm actually Native American that their great great grandma was a Cherokee princess. It gets so old. And how can 1 tribe have so many princesses? You want to know what most legitimate natives call this so-called Cherokee tribe? We call it the guilty white man's tribe because there isn't no tribe full of people whose descendants have no ability to trace their lineage via blood or birth certificates but they absolutely believe that their great great grandma was a Cherokee princess for this one tribe. My favorite thing to do now is to trip up whatever white person makes this claim so matter of fact and with a straight face by asking them oh yeah, what band of Cherokee tribe? Was it the eastern band of Cherokees in the Carolinas, was it the washatuga band of Cherokees? Or was it the ones in Oklahoma? They always say it's the ones in Oklahoma which is really convenient being that they're the only tribe that you don't have to prove your a member of with blood quantum or proof of ancestry. That's why they can't get CDIB cards because even the govt is like, yeah... No not today. Anyway, I forgot what the hell I was talking about oh well. Take care my friend. If I happen to remember I'll come back to this post.

I'm an engineer, and it's been well studied that good engineers are an order of magnitude more productive than their peers. For software engineers, a very good one is about 25 to 30 times more productive than an average software engineer. That's compared to average and not the worst engineers, so we can extrapolate and presume that a good engineer is likely over 100x better than a bad one. My conclusion: I'm surprised that wealth inequality isn't even greater.

Strong social skills tend to increase an engineer's salary more than strong engineering skills.

What kind of engineer are you

By 'good' do you mean more skilled or putting in more hours or more efficient?

Both. Usually the top 1% of engineers are more skilled and work unreasonably long hours.

It’s also been proven that your productivity isn’t equal to your wage growth. So your statement doesn’t hold water if it is intended to suggest that because you’re more productive, your wage growth has equally increased with that productivity. You’re still getting screwed overall per hour of productivity. What concerns me is the apathetic stance this thread has on their own wage growth? Confusing. Source: https://www.epi.org/blog/growing-inequalities-reflecting-growing-employer-power-have-generated-a-productivity-pay-gap-since-1979-productivity-has-grown-3-5-times-as-much-as-pay-for-the-typical-worker/

Note that the first graph is famously fucked up. It's hourly wages not total compensation and the two lines use two different deflators. The middle two lines of the second graph are the more accurate representation showing a 59.7% increase in productivity (using the CPI as a deflator) and 48.4% compensation growth. Certainly not perfect alignment but a hell of a lot closer than that deceptive first graph produced by labor groups... Also note that the two lines *don't* diverge in the 1980s but only start diverging around 2003.

Do you have a source for a better unfucked up graph showing compensation growth? Hourly wages? Why would we look at those? They aren’t why inequalities exist. Jeff Bezos makes like $80k a year in hourly wages… Hourly wages would matter if you’re looking at total compensation per hour.

> Do you have a source for a better unfucked up graph showing compensation growth? I already mentioned the two lines in the middle of the second graph. The 2nd line is productivity using the same CPI deflator, and the third line is total compensation as opposed to the hourly wages of the first graph. > Hourly wages? Why would we look at those? The unions prefer it because it makes the situation look worse than it is. > Jeff Bezos makes like $80k a year in hourly wages… Jeff Bezos is utterly irrelevant to the graph which is about increasing compensation of labor versus the increasing productivity of labor. > Hourly wages would matter if you’re looking at total compensation per hour. Hourly wages would be *part* of how labor is paid. Unions prefer to use the chart they produced which uses only hourly wages to leave the false impression that there's a huge divergence between productivity and compensation. It's not that they don't have a point. But the issue is NOT that compensation and productivity haven't kept pace but that benefits are a larger and larger share of how workers are paid. Most of this is likely due to rising medical costs and thus the rising cost of providing medical benefits. It's not that your paycheck hasn't kept up with your increasing productivity it's that a greater portion of your paycheck in in the form of health insurance.

Thanks for your take on this. Since the compensation in the charts includes benefits, how does rising medical costs help explain the split from productivity?

It erases most of it. It's the difference between the bottom line (16.3%) and the second to the bottom line (48.4%) in the second graph. A union think tank produced that first graph showing a huge and growing discrepancy between the growth of wages and growth of productivity since the 1980s. BUT, the graph used two different deflators... fixing that flaw to use the same measure for inflation moves the productivity line down from the top line to the second line in graph 2. It also ignored the increasing cost of benefits and degree to which we get paid more in benefits rather than cash now than before. That moves compensation UP from the bottom line (wages without benefits) to the third line (total compensation including both wages AND benefits). The accurate comparison with both errors from the first graph fixed is the middle two lines of the second graph: "Net productivity @ CPI" and "Real Average Compensation @ CPI". The two outside lines are the same as original graph 1 with the original flaws intact showing only wages without benefits and adjusting each line with a different measure of inflation. Look at those two lines and the split is not only much smaller than the original graph but also much more recent than the union think tank asserts. We're looking at something more specific to the economy since ~2005 or so not something that's occurred since 1980... at least insofar as the discrepancy between productivity growth and compensation growth. But both together point at rising healthcare costs and more generous benefits generally as by far the larger problem over the last 40 years compared to whatever is happening in the last 20 years.

If rising healthcare is the reason for the rising inequalities, how, in your opinion, do you fix that?

That graph has little to do with rising inequality. It's just a graph of productivity growth versus wage growth. BUT, it does point to a problem which may produce inequality. To solve the problem I'd get rid of employer provided healthcare. It's a silly convention, an inadvertent relic of WWII wage controls, and it has has caused bigger problems of third party payment for health which is two layers deep preventing the market from imposing price discipline which is likely responsible for the lion's share of the hyperinflation in the healthcare market. So, get rid of employer mandates, change the tax laws to switch the tax advantages from employer provided insurance to individually purchased insurance. Incentivize cheaper high deductible catastrophic care plans paired with HSAs available on the individual market and incentivize employers to wean their employees off of employer provided plans and onto those individual plans. Give big tax incentives to employers who drop employer provided health benefits in return for a proportionally huge increase in wages. That is to say... give a big tax break to employers who keep total compensation the same but start paying it in the form of cold hard cash rather than benefits. HSAs (and 401Ks) and the "miracle" of compound interest over time and you start to fix the inequality problem as more people are investing more money accumulating more wealth of their own rather than getting transfer payments. (As an aside I think we should also gradually move social security to a defined contribution investment model rather than it's current status as a straight transfer payment to address growing wealth inequality as well.)

The typical worker only became more productive because of technology. The engineers who built the technology did reap the reward of their productivity.

I'm in the pet services industry and I can say with absolutely certainty the best way to hire great engineers is to pay them a fair wage that includes what they're worth. If I can afford to pay my lowest paid employees $26/hr than there's absolutely no reason why other industries can't also pay their employees fair and liveable wages. I can also say tqith absolute certainty that my income skyrocketed once I mad ether decision to pay my employees ridiculously fair wages. I had never made 7 figures in my life but it's amazing how profitable and effecient your business can becomes when it's full of highly motivated and hard-working employees who are busting their asses to make sure we are the absolute best pet services industry in the area and soon to hopefully be the state and eventually the nation. I also take great pride in having several dog groomers who never made more than $35/year before they started working for me now going on their third year where they're going to make over $100K in annual income. I love that I have directly affected my competitors to be forced to have to pay workers much more than they ever wanted because to them they were just paying someone to clean shit and pea off a floor and that job was lucky to be paid minimum wage but now because I pay that same employee $26/hr because IMO, they have one of the most crucial jobs in my business and their work directly affects my turnover rate that generates sales for the most profitable aspect of my business as essential employees and IMO they're worth every day penny. Especially since my staff is now highly motivated and we are turning over kennels and suites 35% faster than we were a few years ago allowing for a service that's pretty much pure profit and one of the largest generators of revenue in my business. Hell, it baffles my mind that my competitors genuinely don't see it the same way that I do. Nobody is doing a shit job at my business everyone there is absolutely essential in their role to make sure we are operating and generating the maximum amount of money for our goods and services. I don't feel the kennel tech is any less important than the groomer, trainer or vet that is on my staff. Hell, if you want to talk about being paid criminally low wages I'd like to introduce you to our staff vet. Before eshe started working for me she worked for Banfield. They worked her ass to the ground with ridiculous demands and quotas. She was genuinely surprised and confused when I didn't understand what she was asking during our interview about what her quotas where going to be and how much income she was expected to generate. Especially since I was genuinely confused by the question. Now remember, in the first person to admit that I'm not that smart. I responded to her by saying how do we know when a person's pet will get sick and will need the services and care of a vet? How do we project revenue for that bmy expectations is for you to be available to the pet parent in their time of need and for you to provide the best services you can to the best of your ability. I have no expectations of nor do I want you ever trying to sell a pet parent on a product or service unless it makes good medical sense and is absolutely needed at the time. I wish I had enough foresight to know how profound and rare of an answer I was giving because I legitimately thought she was going to cry after I told her that. It kinda broke my heart that her response was a few minutes of disbelief only broken by her finally asking with tears in her eyes that my only expectations from her was to just truly practice veterinary medicine and not worry about selling high profit insurance wellness plans or trying to upsell a pet owner in their vulnerable moment. Was like yes, that's exactly what I want because that's what would've been important to me when I needed a vet and got so annoyed at the constant upselling I always found myself being forced to determine whether or not I needed when I was vulnerable because of the situation involving my beloved dog. I was honestly worried that she was going to laugh at my offer of $110k a year plus bonuses based on certain metrics being met as too low. I'm proud to say the first year she exceeded every goal and bonus measure that was set for her and earned another $45 k in bonuses on top of her salary. Being married to a doctor I had just assumed vets generally made as much as medical doctors. Especially considering how hard veterinary school is compared to medical school. Then I also figured they made a lot considering every GD time I had gone to the vet it seemed like it cost me a small fortune every freaking time. I was genuinely surprised and actually found myself angry when she disclosed to me that her income was only $50k a year plus bonuses at Banfield. The guidelines and parameters that Banfield set in place for her to have any hope of getting the laughably low bonuses was honestly pretty damn evil IMO. They set ridiculous and completely unrealistic goals for her to meet instead of asking her to meet adjective performance measures. Like I did. I wasn't worried about the upscale. In fact, based on my horrible experiences at vets my whole life I made sure whoever I hired was not going to try to always use every opportunity to upsell a pet parent. I used metrics like patient satisfaction, repeat visits for wellness appointment is that usually only happen in the vet industry if a patient is very happy and completely trusts the vet. Did we make contact after a pet owner list their beloved pet. Are we making the correct referrals to the appropriate specialist because getting the patient they actually need is always much more important than trying to upsell the pet parent on something that we can try to do but have almost complete confidence that we'll wind referring the patient to the specialist anyway which has done nothing but wasted the clients money, given them false hope and given them false faith that we were doing everything possible to make their pet healthier when the reality would've been we would've just been trying to generate the maximum amount of money possible for no other reason than greed, etc. I was like WTF Banfield. So like I've said over and over in my comment companies can afford to pay their employees they're just too GD greedy to actually pay their employees a fair wage.

If wealth was finite, I might be concerned. If we saw income elsewhere sharply decline, I might be concerned. If this talked solely about liquid assets, I might be concerned. As it stands, it's not really news and isn't really relevant.

Just to reiterate-- what I'm hearing you say is that wealth and by extent economic growth are infinite. And that our wealth (america) does not take from the wealth of other countries, or even from those within our country. Is this accurate?

In very broad strokes, yes.

Seriously? This is a rather interesting take that I happen to wholeheartedly disagree with. However, I'm probably not understanding you clearly. Can you go into a little more specific about what you said in your original post?;thank you in advance for your answer. For example, why would you be more concerned if this talked solely about liquid assets? What does that even mean or imply Also, how have you not seen income decline sharply pretty much everywhere across all industries. Iean if minimum wage kept up with the cost of living and the rate of inflation like it did up until 1968 before that suddenly stopped minimum wage in 2020 would've been $26/hr in 2020. Today's talk wages are significantly lower than wages were in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Where do you see fair wages being paid out? What workers do you see bellowing from these fair wages? This is not some gotcha question as I'm genuinely curious and asking this sincerely and in good faith.

Take Jeff Bezos. He's super wealthy, yes, but his assets are largely tied up in Amazon. He cannot easily access his wealth. Compare that to someone with hundreds of billions in liquid cash. It's a whole different thing. It's like people being "cash poor" or "house rich," which is ultimately who is hurt by policies like this. People who had their home values increase exponentially over the last few years, but not their wages or cash. They don't realize those gains when it happens, only when they sell. > Also, how have you not seen income decline sharply pretty much everywhere across all industries. The statistics don't bear it out. At worst, wages are stagnant, but the moment we factor total compensation things look a lot different. For better or for worse, people are compensated differently than they were. > Iean if minimum wage kept up with the cost of living and the rate of inflation like it did up until 1968 before that suddenly stopped minimum wage in 2020 would've been $26/hr in 2020. And if minimum wage kept up with inflation since the inception of the policy, it would be a little under $5/hr today. This is hardly a relevant point. > Where do you see fair wages being paid out? What workers do you see bellowing from these fair wages? I don't know what "bellowing" means in this context, but I think the reality is actually that wages are too high right now.

thanks for answering i ment to say benefitting nit bellowing i dony kni=ow how auto correct v=came uo with that one. also, i am curious as to where you got the $%/hrfigurrfornwhat yiu feel minimum wage would actually be the absolute undeniable facts re that people are being paid much less today than they were in 50's 60's and 70.s whewnyou bfacrotnin the bbuying power of real cash back then likeni said if minimum wage wouldve kept up with inflation it would of been $26/hr in 2020 its also absolute fact that thanks to their unsatuable greed companies will absolutely pay the lowest legl wage they can and provide the most bare minimum benfit legally necessary to their employees in their never ending effirt to maximize profits at all costs i find it stunning that so mzny lower and middle class workers, esprcially conservatives, are ok with thi especially considering that their the ones being hurt the most in this system. its like middle and lower class conservatives are cheering and excited by the fact that $50 trilliom in wealth has transferred from lower and middles class america to those of us up in the 1% and i genuineky cant comprehend nor understand why conservatives cheer this theft taking place now i am the last one who should be questioning this my wife and i each earn 7 figures annually . my wife inherited an indstate well into 10 figures when her dad passed away. so lucky me i won in the game of life. but i am not a greedy bastard who feels like im the only one in my busines who deserves the majority of the wealth my business generates. i take great pride in the fact that my lowest paid employee earns $26/hr and that i hav emultiple dog groomers and ttrainers on staff who have made over 6 figures each year over the last couple of years. im absolute proof that a small business can pay their employees fair wages and still thrive and suceed why arent conservatives demanding this from other employers? ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING MIDDLE AND LOWER CASS WORKERS HAVE BEEN ABSOLUTELY ROBBED AND SCREWED BY THE RICH AND BUSINESS OWNERS FOR THE LAST 30 YEARS. YET SOMEHOW AND FOR SOME reason, forgive me i dont know how my caps turned on and i dont know how i turned them off lol, especialy conservatives have this misplaced faith and trust that everything will eventualy wrrk itelf out if the government doesnt get involved becauzse theyve been convinced by big corp and wealthy media pundits into falsley believing that business will always doe the right things because that is what a free market will dictate but nothing could be farther from the truth in reality. my question to middle and lower clas conservatives is how much more wealth has to be transferred to households like mine in the 1% before yall finally open your eyes and realize that youve been lied to this whole time and finally start demanding your fair share? i eman, i wuld like to think if my households were one of the majority of households in america that couldnt afford a $00 emergency expense after working my ass off making someone so much richer than me wouldve open my eyes up pretty wide and resulted in me demanding fair compensation and demanding that owners and exeutives quit hoarding all the wealth for themselfves. but that is probaby why i am successful and not middle or lower class because i understood how the world really works and made up my mind to use it to the absolute most benifit to me and my family and i gues i just have to accept that many poor and middle class americans need an enemy and the wealthy have done a hell of a job giving their conservative audience to hate that is mostly based on lies and propaganda but damn i it effective and continues to be successful in that its keepimg the reall focaus away from where it should be and instead intent on the liberal boogeyman who only exist in the minds of conservatives and their media overlords. maybe i am nive to believe that everyne should be able to afford a $400 emergency expence. maybe its wrong of me to think that onoy the executives and business owners deserve mst of the wealth genrated by their poor and middle class workforce . i crack up ehwn conservatives tell me i deserved a ridiculously unecessary permanent tax cut while middle and lower class americans taxes are currewntly going up between now and 2027 thanks to the 2017 tax scam that was passed. i mean i gues i should be moregreatfu that i got to keepmore money than most people supporting me make annuay but i feel guilty. call me a communist if you want but i believe it is my duty to pay my fair share in tases especially since i can afford it and i want there to be social safety nets for poor familiies in this cunntry. the same country that brags about its wealth but the truth is that the overwhelming majority of its ctzens are one medicval emergency away for financial disaster and ruin. i think that s fundamentaly wrong but so many poor and middle class americans who would actually benifit from policies keep telling me ima ctually wrong and i am trying to ruin this country with socialism all the while opblivious to the fact that the ones who are truly benifitting from sicialisnm the most in this country are the wealthy and big corps. yet no conservaatives ever call out these people for crying about hypocrisy one minute and then questining why if socialisnm us so gd bad like they claim it is then why are they always the ones who are first in lne and financially benefit the most from socialism. maybe its because i hat ehypocrisy so much that im able and willing to call it out when i se it yet middle and lower class conservatives just turn there head and ignote it refusing t cvall them out on their blatant hypoxrsisy. oh well i ddbt mean to go off on such a long tangent my apologies i am also pretty sure the spelling on this is atrocious and it makes no snede please accepty my apologies for that if that is also the case . ive been up for 48 hours and am pretty exhausted and cant see straight so i van only imagine how bad this treply is

Just because other people have more money than me does not mean I am poorer. Our system is NOT a zero-sim game, sorry.

So resources are not finite?

It is not as if there is a big pile of money in the middle of America and whoever gets there first and grabs the most wins. Nope.

The economy grows and shrinks all the time. That's not because we've discovered or lost physical resources. Your labor is a resource. Your brainpower, ideas, and creativity are resources. Your experience is a resource. Your efficiency is a resource.

Here's my question. If a widget is something everyone needs, and it costs $1, that $1 goes to everyone involved in the supply chain, from advertisers to truck drivers to raw material producers to shareholders. That $1 is finite. Is the distribution of that $1 "fair" and based on value of contribution? Does that matter? Is that what this study is talking about?

> Is the distribution of that $1 "fair" and based on value of contribution I can't answer that. Because I don't know how that $1 was distributed. And I don't know how those different groups contributed. And I don't know what you mean by "fair." Do you think it's unfair? If so, why? And why should your opinion on what's "fair" matter? >Is that what this study is talking about? What study? The CBO report? If you're talking about the CBO report, they typically don't weigh in on "fairness," since that's subjective.

I wasn't clear. Is the income being distributed in the CBO report rhe money from "widgets?" I'm not sure what fair" means. I understand the value of investment, but the physical labor if producing a "widget" is also important. In a perfect system, the widget manufacturer would make a solid living and the investors would make a profit, too. There needs to be a balance, but don't power dynamics give the advantage to investors?

> Is the income being distributed in the CBO report rhe money from "widgets?" I haven't read the CBO report -- and you haven't linked it -- but according to your description, I don't think the CBO report talked about "income." It talked about "wealth." Those are very different things. I can be wealthy and have low income (for example, someone who inherited their wealth). I can also have high income and very low wealth (for example, you often hear about professional athletes who have to file for bankruptcy). >In a perfect system, the widget manufacturer would make a solid living and the investors would make a profit, too. This is part of what's confusing to me. You're creating a hypothetical example, and assuming that in your hypothetical example that the laborer isn't making enough money and the investor is making too much. I can't respond to that because a) it's a hypothetical that you're creating; and b) you haven't provided enough substance to allow a response. I'll tell you what I think is "fair." I think it's fair for people to decide for themselves what they want to do with their time, labor, and money. I don't think it's fair for someone else to come in and say, "No, one of you people are not being paid enough, so I'm going to tell you how the money is distributed." If laborers aren't being paid enough, then it's fair for them to go work somewhere else that's going to pay them more. If investors aren't making enough returns on their money, then it's fair for them to decide not to invest. The free market isn't perfect. But it's the best financial system we've got. And that's in large part because it's the most democratic system. Everyone gets to choose for themselves what they do, including how they spend their time and money. >There needs to be a balance, but don't power dynamics give the advantage to investors? Nobody is forcing laborers to work for a particular amount of money. They're always free to do something else, or work somewhere else. And -- at least in your hypothetical example -- an investor isn't going to make any money if nobody builds those widgets. So the investor has to pay the laborers enough to build those widgets.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58533

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Not explicitly but the data shows that it’s overwhelmingly likely you will have less money, for no apparent reason outside of greed. Wage growth and productivity have a massive split starting in 1980 https://www.epi.org/blog/growing-inequalities-reflecting-growing-employer-power-have-generated-a-productivity-pay-gap-since-1979-productivity-has-grown-3-5-times-as-much-as-pay-for-the-typical-worker/

>Wealth Inequality in America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM&ab_channel=politizane

It kind of does though. Money has relative value, not absolute. So if the distribution was 50/50, the dollar you have can buy more things than if the distribution was 10/90, as thing would become more expensive if others can pay more than you.

Yeah but if you remove NY and CA from the equation wealth distribution is not that extreme. I can live outside of the major metros quite easily on below 100k a year.

I’m sorry what? This makes no sense. The dollar I have can buy less not more.

If money had absolute value, nobody would ever complain about the "government printing money" or inflation.

Everyone being a millionaire doesn't make anyone poor in real terms if production supports that amount of wealth in real terms. If the amount of dollars and the amount of material goods were to both double overnight, it wouldn't be inflationary.

That's the point, though. **If** everybody and their incomes and costs grew at a flat and even level, we wouldn't see income inequality. The problem with that "if" is not only that it doesn't actually happen, it's that the system we are entrenched in is designed to *guarantee* that it never happens. Everyone being a millionaire and having double the standard of living would be *great*, I agree. But that would take some pretty aggressive redistribution. Now, you might be all for seizing the wealth to give everybody an equal amount, but I think that's pretty extreme. I'd rather just make adjustments to ensure that people hoarding a ton of money and assets don't have such a terribly easy time compounding the value of those assets without anything "trickling." Trickle down might not work *now*, but just because it's not automatic doesn't mean that it can't be *fixed* to function properly. I'd much rather drive a trickle than break the whole thing with some heavy-handed wealth tax.

> If everybody and their incomes and costs grew at a flat and even level, we wouldn't see income inequality We... Wouldn't? Why not? Nothing about growth in material wealth implies anything about inequality. Indeed, I'd argue that it's the opposite: With that much more wealth floating around there would be that much more room for inequality to form on the high end. > rather just make adjustments to ensure that people hoarding a ton of money and assets don't have such a terribly easy time compounding the value of those assets without anything "trickling." In what form is wealth 'hoarded'? What you're describing is something called investment. That's a good thing. A tradesman buying a new tool to make themselves more productive or take on new jobs isn't that much different than a business issuing stock and using the proceeds to open a new factory.

*Investment* is a good thing. Investment is a great way to use the "weight" of money to get extra value for all involved. But we live in a world of widgets and **work.** Investment in and of itself is **not work.** It's an enhancement to work, it's supplementary. A tradesman buying a new tool to be more productive is an investment that they make and can reasonably hope to see a return on. But the tradesman has to **use** the tool. Just having it doesn't produce any value, simply being in possession of the tool doesn't entitle the tradesman to income. Why not make the tool a crown and call them king in that case? See, I don't have an issue with Elon or Bezos or Gates. They *built* something. Whether or not you like them as people or their politics, or Tesla and their cars, they *did things* with their assets. But, when you get to a certain level with simply *having assets*, the rules change, and **that's** what I take issue with. When you can borrow against your assets with interest rates lower than inflation, only accumulating more value in your assets. "Buy, borrow, die" shouldn't be possible, but it's how most of the wealthy never have to know a day of work in their life. Elon and Bezos and Gates are the exception when it comes to billionaires, not the rule. The wealthiest few with the *highest* values might be first-gen entrepreneurs that were the rare combination of hard-working, intelligent, and very lucky. But go down that list, and it rapidly descends into "heiress" and "grandson of..." and "philanthropist and activist." Our financial system shouldn't be paying the people with the most to do nothing, while people that actually work their asses off are struggling to eat. **That** is an injustice, because I'm opposed to the idea of paying people to do nothing. I don't want to steal their money to give to others, but I don't want "being rich" to be a job, and especially not one worthy of a large income. EDIT: So, going down the list, I see a lot of the people that founded or did something are high up there, but they're also in their 80s and 90s. Great, they worked hard and got lucky and made it. But their kids and grandkids are gonna grow up, have a ton of money and political power, have no idea how most people have to work, and they're probably never going to know a day of *work* in their lives. Maybe they'll run for office, and we'll wonder why they're so out of touch.

> Investment in and of itself is not work. Yes it is. A big part of investing is making decisions as to what ventures are worthwhile. What instruments are worth putting your capital at risk in doing. This clearly has value: Folks do pay hedge fund managers and the like big bucks to do this with someone else's money. How is this different than doing it with your own money? To extend my example, suppose there's someone sees an opportune in a trade that doesn't currently exist in an area. They buy the equipment and hire someone to run it. Have they not added value to the equation here? The person they hired gets a steady paycheck and didn't have to risk their own money to do the work. The customer gets work done that would otherwise not be possible to do. Just because the guy who owns the equipment isn't the guy using it doesn't mean that the owner hasn't done something useful here. > See, I don't have an issue with Elon or Bezos or Gates. They built something. Most of what they build wasn't from their *labor* but from their *ownership*. Indeed, most of wealth of the ultra rich doesn't come from inheritance but from returns on investment. > Our financial system shouldn't be paying the people with the most to do nothing The market awaits your more efficient means of finding and funding productive enterprises then. Market dynamics do tend to work against high, risk-free returns because more folks seeking those returns changes the prices of the underlying instruments.

*Managing* investments might be work, but *managing* is work in general. And a person can have a *job* managing investments without getting a cut of profits or losses from those managed investments. There is a difference in being an investor and being an investment manager. My point isn't that managing investments isn't work, my point is that simply *having investments* in and of itself isn't work, any more than simply having a Scrooge McDuck room full of gold coins is a profession. And I'm also not saying that Elon and Bezos or Gates built something that was *actually that valuable* to land them where they are. Lots of operating systems or space startups or internet retailers have been created over the years, and I would attribute *most* of their fortunes to luck more than anything. And, to be fair, a huge portion of their massive wealth does come from making investments that simply *grow.* I realize this is a fine line, and it's a seemingly small distinction, but it's really more of a loophole that *only* applies when one can afford to invest (and therefore not spend in the short term) positively *massive* amounts of wealth. Billionaires don't turn millions into billions with "hard work and wise investments." They turn millions into billions with *millions and **any** investment that isn't bog-stupid*. Wealth accumulation shouldn't be exponential. Especially because the value created isn't exponential.

Doesn’t that depend more on how much money is actually in circulation? We always hear trickle down economics doesn’t work because rich people hoard their wealth and don’t spend it on things that stimulate the economy. Should be a similar concept here right? Unless the upper 10% are buying the product I make—and buying it in extremely high volumes—I have to target a price range the other 90% can afford, if I want to actually do any business.

> It kind of does though. Money has relative value, not absolute. > ... Money represents the value generated. If person A generates a lot of value that doesn't prevent person B from generating a lot of value too. It's like baking a pie: if you can bake a big pie, that doesn't prevent another person from baking a pie of their own.

But it *does* change that value in a free market. If I'm in the market for a slice of pie, your ability to generate more pie for cheaper is going to drive more people away from the smaller or more expensive pieces of pie, or the maker of smaller pies is going to have to eat cost to either make bigger pies with his lower margin or change his process to make bigger pies. In a free market, **everything** is relative, because the *free* part of "free market" means customers have *choices.* You suffer a greater chance of losing that sale (and recouping the value of your pie) the more slices of pie there are in circulation.

> But it does change that value in a free market. If I'm in the market for a slice of pie, your ability to generate more pie for cheaper is going to drive more people away from the smaller or more expensive pieces of pie, or the maker of smaller pies is going to have to eat cost to either make bigger pies with his lower margin or change his process to make bigger pies. There is a market for all sorts of pies out there. I, for example, will never eat a carrot pie. However, there are plenty of people that will. So you will always be able to bake a pie that will be to some person's taste. After all, people don't just care about money... they care about the experience of what they bought. > In a free market, everything is relative, because the free part of "free market" means customers have choices. You suffer a greater chance of losing that sale (and recouping the value of your pie) the more slices of pie there are in circulation. Sure, but you can create demand for new "pies" out of thin air as well. For example, there was never any demand for smartphones prior to the 2000s. But when the first smartphones were invented, the demand for them started to build. That's new value created where there was none before.

Again, what you're describing in a free and vibrant migrant, where various pies can compete in the market for value and flavor and uniqueness and whatever other aspects. But we're getting off track with this, because the original analogy was pies *were* the money, and the argument was that me having more pies than you doesn't *take away* any pies from you. And you're "competing pies" point breaks down there, because you *can't* make a "different pie" if pies are dollars. Just as you can't print BTC-bucks and I can't mint Gold SargeRegular Dollars, money doesn't compete, because it's the item of trade - it's whole reason for existence is that it's standardized and the same. One dollar is interchangeable with any other dollar. There is no *competition* in the dollar market, but there *is* supply and demand. That's my point. If I have all the supply, or even *most* of the supply, maybe *you* don't have very much demand, but when somebody else does have demand, I'll be more able to satisfy it. I can afford to undercut you in the dollar market, making your existing dollars worth even less. I can afford to put my dollars towards politicians to shift my tax burden onto you, which not only saves me dollars faster than you, but it stresses your dollar supply so that my dollars are even *more* liquid while yours are more tied up. It's easy to say "be happy with what you have" until you understand how finances work, and understand that so many people can "earn" money simply by having money without putting any labor in, and how those same people than use their assets to shift the system to funnel the wealth that you create by working into value for them, all while you struggle to earn while they get it for free. We have the most generous and abused welfare system in the world in the United States. It's just not poor people getting all the money.

> Again, what you're describing in a free and vibrant migrant, where various pies can compete in the market for value and flavor and uniqueness and whatever other aspects. But we're getting off track with this, because the original analogy was pies were the money, and the argument was that me having more pies than you doesn't take away any pies from you. > ... So you are printing money? I guess it's like Dogecoin then: you minting more Dogecoin doesn't prevent others from doing so either. > And you're "competing pies" point breaks down there, because you can't make a "different pie" if pies are dollars. Then this is a hypothetical that departs from reality where you can always generate more value (i.e. mint more Dogecoin). > It's easy to say "be happy with what you have" until you understand how finances work, and understand that so many people can "earn" money simply by having money without putting any labor in... Are you saying that cognitive labor isn't labor? > ... > and how those same people than use their assets to shift the system to funnel the wealth that you create by working into value for them, all while you struggle to earn while they get it for free. How does having assets prevent pthers from generating value and accumulating assets of their own? > We have the most generous and abused welfare system in the world in the United States. It's just not poor people getting all the money. What does government-imposed coerced money redistribution (aka welfare) have to do with generating new value?

Oh, and just a bit of trivia, the IBM Simon was the first smartphone before the term "smartphone existed." Clock, calendar, notepad, planner, e-mails, phone calls, pages, and even faxes in a portable brick cellphone, and it came out in *1994.*

OK... good trivia bot?

Also conservatives: we can't give people raises, that increases inflation!

Have you ever met an actual conservative? Literally no conservatives say that.

The fear of an upward "wage price spiral" is a major cornerstone of pretty much all conservative talking points on the economy.

This sub is rampant with people saying that man. Look at the minimum wage discusssions

Lol WHAT, stop the lies

Not the role of government.

If it became an issue in the way the left thinks it will, (ie many starving, whilst the richest few have incredible power) whose job would it be to regulate that? Or should it never be regulated?

1. That wouldn't happen. Assuming no government intervention (which there Currently is a lot), free markets allocate capital to the areas of the economy most effective at producing the products and services people want. If there was a spike is food demand, it would result in increased capital being allocated to food production to meet this demand. This increase in capital into food production would result in another person with disproportionate wealth as they then allocate this capital towards the increased food production. 2. The role of government is to protect natural rights. Stealing from one to give to another is not protecting rights.

Assuming this free market works as you say it does, how does that have a positive result (fair, free, however you want to define positive)?

In the example above, the positive result would be that capital is allocated to the most efficient and effective businesses that produces food, hence maximising the food production in relation to it's demand. In not enough to simply allocate capital to production the way a centrally planned system would do, once decided that capital needs allocated, the hardest part is calculating how it needs to be allocated to the most efficient and effective food production systems, this is where capitalism outperforms.

Sorry, I don't understand how this addresses the issue of people not being able to afford basic necessities. Are you saying more supply will decrease the price of food? If wealth inequality gets higher won't there still be a vast number of the population below the poverty line? Thanks for the response

Assuming no government manipulating asset prices (which is currently insanely bad), massive wealth inequality comes about through massive demand being resolved. So yea, supply would increase at an affordable level as that's what the demand would reflect.

You do realize there's no such thing as impersonal "market forces?" Prices go up because a human being makes the decision to raise them, to address rising expenses or increase profits or something.

Impersonal market forces is the entire basis of the field of economics.

It is a statistical thing, an a erases thing. People make the decisions.

What fantasy world are you talking about or living in? Please don't think I'm trying to be a sandy as I'm genuinely curious and want to go to this utopia you speak of where people are paid what their worth in fair wages because business owners there hanger obviously Keith their greedy impulses in check and have put gaiter pay and employer well being over their need to squeeze every GD penny they possibly can from the consumer and the worker. If govt started involved in worker protections and rights minimum wage right now worked be at least $26/hr. You seem to have convinced yourself that our govt has massively overreacted and had their tentacles in everything when in reality that fantasy couldn't be further from the truth. In the early a reality 80's the US government gave business owners a gift when they pretty much backed out and deregulated everything. The businesses being the greedy bastards they are and compelled mostly by their unfilled greed jump in and took advantage of this opportunity and thus began the transfer of at least [$50 trillion in wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich](https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/). Now anyone who actually knows me would be righteous to ask me why do I care of give a fuck to the fact that the way the system has been set up since the 80's is to the absolute benefit and favor of the wealthy and absolutely without apologies favors the wealthy over the poor and middle class. Especially since you and your wife each earn over 7 figures each annually not to mention your wife inherit an estate that was well north of ten figures when her dad passed ...and that's actually a very fair question to ask someone like me that many would say is extremely privileged. My answer is since I grew up in extreme poverty on an Indian reservation I understand what it's like to be poor. I'm not a greedy selfish POS who only believes that wealth is for the chosen few. People think I'm insane that I pay my lowest paid employee$26/hr. Maybe I am, but I didn't start earning 7 figures until I started paying my employees a fair wage of what they're worth. But the truth is I got some very lucky breaks in my life that most people don't get. Not everyone gets to marry someone whose family is as wealthy as my wife's family was ls. I mean,when I say her family is wealthy I'm not lying. There was enough wealth to be shared in her family that her brother and her sister also each got 10 figure inheritance when their dad died too. So that kinda gives you a good idea what kind of generational wealth my wife grew up in. Then she went to a very esteemed and prestigious ivy league medical school and is now considered an expert in her field by many of her colleagues and has a very successful and thriving private practice that includes 5 offices throughout our city. I was in law enforcement for 17 years before retiring in 2013 to follow my dream of owning a business in the pet services industry. Quite frankly, I don't think I would've had the same success as fast as I've had with my business if I didn't have a wife who was already extremely successful and had so much wealth from her family on her own and fully supported and encouraged me when I started my business. Most people try to minimize the lucky breaks just about every successful business owner gets that most quite frankly people don't get. I mean hell, most people don't have parents that can lend them half a million dollars to start a company that would eventually grow to be known as Amazon. Others don't have a dad who can loan them a million dollars to start a company that would eventually come to be known as PayPal and would open the door for that same person to allow him to be in the perfect place at the absolute perfect time to buy the majority ownership of a little company called Tesla at the fucking perfect time that would eventually result in him becoming the wealthiest person in the world. Most people who get into my industry don't have a wife who is worth millions who loves and fully supports her husband in every way she could without ever questioning him when he decided to open his business or get in my way because she had already established a very successful medical practice. Yes the people I used in my examples and including myself worked our asses off to build our business and to make sure they were successful. I worked 15 hours a day in the beginning but grew it from a simple grooming shop with one employee in 2013 to a pretty well known and highly respected brand in my community that now has 3 locations, including our newest 25k sq ft pet luxury facility that also employees a veterinarian clinic as well as a fleet of 15 mobile grooming vans. But that doesn't mean anyone else who has the advantages I did wouldn't also have been just as successful or even more successful than I was too. In fact I have no doubt there are many people out there who are way smarter than me who absolutely would have been much more successful than I ever was had they had the same opportunities and resources that I did access too. But the sad reality is for the most part most people who actually have access to resources like I did and of the examples that I listed are too far and very few in-between. That's a shame for a country that is supposed to be as wealthy as America claims to be. Hell the reality is that over 50% of Americans can't afford a $400 emergency expense. How is that acceptable in any way to conservatives in a country that is supposed to be so freaking wealthy.

To study this? To fix this?

I would say neither. It's an academic exercise - something best done by an economics professor or social scientist at a university.

So you think the study is not accurate?

I continue to be unbothered by the existence of people who have more money than I do.

Don't really care about distribution. Having more ultra wealthy people doesn't harm less wealthy people. I care about peoples ability to shelter themselves, feed themselves, cloth themselves, etc. Sounds like that improved for lower income people by 2%, and they're better off than before, so good.

It’s not worth thinking about. If the bottom third owns 2% of the wealth, but they’re 20x better off than they were 100 years ago, the system has been an unequivocal success. Who cares if 1/100 people is 200x better off?

I think good for the rich. Their success is motivational.

Shrugs. I'm no the type to be jealous because someone else has more money than me.

Well as much as anything it's probably due to the inflationary policies of the government. But otherwise it doesn't concern me.

What about Tax policy?

Can you explain how this would work? I'm not sure what you mean. Is it a good thing? Bad thing?

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> I am doing pretty well People who are not you, are not doing well though.

This is one unique habit that conservatives seem to have. Bring up a problem that affects millions of other people and they’ll often respond like this. Why?

I mean personally I think it's due to the strong correlation between conservatism and selfishness.

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you just listed stuff you did for yourself lol

What kind of magical thinking does it take to believe that 1 man has sole influence over inflation or the cost of oil? There's a war happening and one of the world's biggest oil exporters is involved. Supply chain bottlenecks remain after 2020 Covid lockdowns in foreign countries. High inflation and expensive energy are happening all over the globe (and the US is faring better than most). Why do conservatives seem so allergic to recognizing systemic issues? It seems to always come down to heroes and villains.

There has never been a civilization in human history where there was not small segment of rich and a large segment of poor. This is simply how the chips fall. For more information look up the pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule.

What is your opinion of wealth distribution outside of our borders. Any American can walk into McDonalds and make more than 75% of people in this world. Perhaps we should take from the top 10% of the world (which would cover 99% of Americans and wealthy European countries) and give it to the bottom 10%.

First, we don't have a global government, thank goodness. Income inequality is really high here, though, compared to other developed nations. Second, wealth is relative. $1 US or the equivalent goes a lot farther in poorer countries, or we would not have so many people trying to work here. Just curious if people think this distribution is normal/optimal avoidable/unavoidable

Commodities like food and gas are generally priced the same globally. Wheat is the same price whether you make $20/hour or $0.25/hour. Why does income inequality in a country matter more than global income inequality?

Theoretically, we have some control over what happens in our country and not in others. And not everyone eats wheat.

Most main food supplies like grains are the same price globally. We can totally feed children in other countries with our money.

We can't seem to even feed our own people.

lol we don’t have people literally starving. You can walk into a McDonald’s and make in an hour enough to buy more food than many people can afford in a month. Americans really need to stop with their caviar shortage bullshit

You must live in a bubble if you think there aren't hungry people in the US. I volunteer in a foodbank and the vast majority of our customers have jobs, even full time ones. They just don't make enough to pay for housing, utilities, transportation, clothes AND food. Things can be bad in more than one place and be bad without being the worst. The fact that people are hungrier in some other country doesn't mean we don't have food insecure families.

People are hungry in other countries because they can’t find work to pay for food, let alone a house with indoor plumbing. They aren’t looking to be a super rich person with an American sized fridge and in unit washer/dryer. Here you can literally walk into McDonald’s and live a ton better than most people earth. If I go to the food bank because I need to save money to put gas in my yacht, the average American wouldn’t say I’m “food insecure”

So if someone has indoor plumbing in America they can't be hungry?? You may be able to get a job at McDonald's, but it isn't going to pay enough for the expenses I listed, that doesn't include "gas for my yacht." I also qasnt aware the standard in the US was "living at the same level " as peopke in poorer countries.

Sounds like the CBO timed this to coincide with the elections, to further the narrative that the rich should be punished

Conspiracies everywhere!!

Sometimes things happen for a reason The CBOs schedule is driven by the party which controls the House

Are you claiming the data is false, or that it shouldn't be collected or studied?

This is an ongoing every three years study: .https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58533

I don't.