New study! Here’s a report on it from Real Clear Markets:
The top 10% of Americans control roughly three-quarters of the nation’s wealth, and the minority of Haves are continuing to accumulate more than the majority of Have-Nots.
This is wealth inequality in the United States. And though it doesn’t attract as much attention as income inequality, it’s arguably far more important, imposing economic instabilities and social strife.
To decrease wealth inequality, pundits, politicians, and economists often suggest raising income tax rates on top earners to as high as 50, 70, or even 90 percent.
The idea sounds plausible, but according to a new study published to PLoS ONE it probably won’t work in practice.
[…]In their model, income inequality was tied to a metric called the Gini index, a statistical measure of inequality used for decades. They found that altering income inequality to a Gini index of 0.1 (very low inequality) resulted in the top 10% controlling 78.6% of wealth in 2030, while raising income inequality to a Gini index of 0.9 (very high inequality) resulted in the top 10% controlling 79.3% of wealth in 2030, hardly a significant difference.
Do you know what does work to help people – growing the economy so that everyone can find work. It’s actually been done before.
The conservative Heritage Foundation describes the effects of the Bush tax cuts from 2001 and 2003.
Excerpt:
President Bush signed the first wave of tax cuts in 2001, cutting rates and providing tax relief for families by, for example, doubling of the child tax credit to $1,000.
At Congress’ insistence, the tax relief was initially phased in over many years, so the economy continued to lose jobs. In 2003, realizing its error, Congress made the earlier tax relief effective immediately. Congress also lowered tax rates on capital gains and dividends to encourage business investment, which had been lagging.
It was the then that the economy turned around. Within months of enactment, job growth shot up, eventually creating 8.1 million jobs through 2007. Tax revenues also increased after the Bush tax cuts, due to economic growth.
In 2003, capital gains tax rates were reduced. Rather than expand by 36% as the Congressional Budget Office projected before the tax cut, capital gains revenues more than doubled to $103 billion.
The CBO incorrectly calculated that the post-March 2003 tax cuts would lower 2006 revenues by $75 billion. Revenues for 2006 came in $47 billion above the pre-tax cut baseline.
Here’s what else happened after the 2003 tax cuts lowered the rates on income, capital gains and dividend taxes:
- GDP grew at an annual rate of just 1.7% in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the six quarters following the tax cuts, the growth rate was 4.1%.
- The S&P 500 dropped 18% in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts but increased by 32% over the next six quarters.
- The economy lost 267,000 jobs in the six quarters before the 2003 tax cuts. In the next six quarters, it added 307,000 jobs, followed by 5 million jobs in the next seven quarters.
The timing of the lower tax rates coincides almost exactly with the stark acceleration in the economy.
Please note: revenues actually went up as a result of the tax cuts, because more economic growth means more taxes are collected on the income that is generated.
Whenever people with savings take risks to grow their wealth, there will be jobs created. The solution to helping the poor isn’t giving them someone else’s money. The solution to helping the poor is to let productive job creators keep their own earnings, so that they use their money to create more jobs. That way, people who want to work have multiple job offers and can pick the best one. Productive people are not the enemy. Productive people give you money to work for them. That’s good for you.
WINTERY KNIGHT 