GDP is a measure of total income in a country. For at least the two decades before 1980, American median income grew about as fast as GDP and Americans below the median income saw faster growth than Americans who were…
Blog Archives
New bill would require better measures of median income (plus a lot more)
Posted in Inequality, Medianism
Occupational licensing is the new unionization
Back in 2011, which kind of license would cost more money to obtain in New York City, A) a license to practice medicine or B) a license to drive a taxicab? In 2011, a taxi cab license cost over $1 million.…
Posted in Inequality, Labor
Innovative societies must have equality of opportunity
The current tax bill is largely motivated by the theory that if you give tax cuts to successful rich people, even though it increases inequality, it will be worth it because these elites will create jobs through innovation with the…
Posted in Inequality, Public Finance
Money can’t buy you love, but can it buy you life?
Raj Chetty et al. published a study of the correlation of class and life expectancy that got a lot of press, but I hadn’t actually looked at the original publication until this week. Here is the correlation between life expectancy…
The end of the efficiency-equity curve
Updated January 15, 2024 In rich nations, inequality dramatically dropped during the first decades of the 20th century and although inequality has been creeping up again over the past half century (especially in the US) it has remained lower than…
Anyone who is a true advocate for the middle class must accept a little class warfare
The American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, wrote a position paper arguing that Americans are saving a lot more for retirement than a Pew study showed. The AEI objected to the sort of media reports about the Pew study saying,…
Posted in Inequality, Middle class
The socialism-prosperity curve.
Jordan Ellengerg’s book, How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking has an entire chapter about how surprisingly difficult it is for people to think in terms of non-linear relationships like the equity-efficiency curve. On page 23, he draws…
Medianism 