American Wages, the Minimum Wage and Income Brackets

Not nearly well-enough. Mostly one-liners that show the ineptitude of the writer to indulge in Factual Economic Debate!

Whazzat? Because economics is a "science"! It's for people who have been trained in the subject posted within that science and where an argument is supported by factual information.

And not just "one's opinion" ...

 

Only if you accept and the US shows that it is unable to even "address the matter".

Most people haven't the foggiest notion of what "inequality" means because they think that they are all equal. Yes, as regards personal freedoms, we are indeed all equal.

But the word "inequality" means more in Economic terms. It means also "fairness" and in this case fairness of the distribution of Income.

No, we can't all be earning "equal incomes". We are all different as are our abilities. But the variance in incomes should not be as "irregular" as they are in the US.

There is absolutely no necessity for Net Income after Taxation that becomes first Wealth and then Net Revenue to be accumulated at the top of the pyramid. Just because one is able to do so. How so? By the fact that absurdly low Income Taxation at the higher income levels permits them to do so!

How did that happen, Just look at upper-income taxation history - here: History of US Income Tax Rates.

Notice that in the come-down from the highest-rate (92%) started with JFK/LBJ in 2003. Once Reckless Ronnie was elected he reduced them drastically to the below 30% in 1987/8.

That is when the shift of Wealth (which is Income less Taxation) really began to grow amongst a tiny elite in the US! See here below what happened to the distribution of Wealth ever since:

The top-1% of families are garnering almost half of all of America's Financial Wealth! The top-5% obtain almost three-quarters of it all!

What is the above graphic indicating to us? That something is very, very wrong with both upper-income AND death-taxation* ... !

*Meaning money that is accrued by the rich, and remains with the rich due to low death-taxes. Only taxed-income returns to the economy by means of government spending. And when it comes to placing their Wealth, who are the biggest buyers of Treasury Notes that are employed to support Federal spending profligacy? The very rich!

 

Socialism is about equality and equal protection of the law. We know capitalism will never care.

We should be solving simple poverty on an at-will basis in our at-will employment States.

 

If a nation can ask you to provide your kid to defend the country in some foreign war, then it should be able as well to provide protection from the avaricious inequality* that besets America today ...

And that is done by two means:
*Disallow most of the tax-deductions that lower total taxation, and impose upon the rich a rigorous tax-schedule and upon the super-rich near confiscatory taxation. When that becomes the will of the people, then it will happen.* (But, the US is nowhere near that outcome. Not yet.)
*Do the same for Inheritance taxation - so as to assure the accumulation of insufficiently taxed-income does not favor rich families. There is no valid reason why it should, and when it no longer does so, earners will place far less effort on earning fabulously large incomes (which no needs to live very, very well in any developed economy)!

Once we disassociate ourselves from the pure selfishness of acquiring riches, America will be a better place to live for all. If and when we change radically America's tax system, which shifts far too much of Earned Income up to a very small percentage of the population.

If taxation is applied to obtain revenues that (at the very least) allow the country to provide Free Healthcare and Nearly Free Postsecondary Education. Which are the two key elements of a Social Democracy. There are also other elements, especially as regards housing. But the two mentioned here are the prime reasons why, first, life-span in America is four years less than in Europe; and, second, why today's youth is not obtaining the advanced skill-sets that the Information Age is requiring of them!

*List of countries by levels of Income Disparity, here:


And the graphic for the top 20% of the population is about the same ...

 

NST. There is no such thing as "equal protection of the law".

 

The EU only functions under the protection of the US military. Without the US the EU is not viable.

 

Why not?

 

Rule by an expert elite is the norm in human history. Human history has been one disaster after another.

"However, as far as the New World was concerned this was
only theoretically so. It is true enough that the men of the
American Revolution remained bound to the conceptual and
intellectual framework of the European tradition and that they
were no more capable of articulating theoretically the colonial
experience of the tremendous strength inherent in mutual
promises than they were ready to admit in principle, and not
only occasionally, the intimate relationship between 'happiness*
and action - that 'it is action, not rest, that constitutes our
pleasure' (John Adams). Had this bondage to tradition deter-
mined the actual destinies of the American republic to the
same extent as it compelled the minds of the theorists, the
authority of this new body politic in actual fact might have
crumbled under the onslaught of modernity - where the loss
of religious sanction for the political realm is an accomplished
fact - as it crumbled in all other revolutions."
ON REVOLUTION, Hannnah Arendt, Penguin Classics, 2006.
https://archive.org/stream/OnRevolution/ArendtOn-revolution_djvu.txt

Americans, not Europeans are the experts at founding viable government.

 

I see no evidence that "Yes, as regards personal freedoms, we are indeed all equal." is true.

Economic inequality is also inevitable.

 

Because "equal protection under the law" is an impossible ideal. All ideals are impossible.

 

I am not sure what you mean; socialism is about equality not profit.

in this case, equal protection of the law conforms to our commerce clause and economics.

 

That terminology is suspect. Rule by self-interested power elite is more accurate.
[
eg In 1789, an economist advised Louis the 16th to raise taxes on the wealthy; the king hesitated under the pressure of a self-interested aristocracy. In this case it was the lack of economic expertise within the aristocracy that led to the ensuing disaster.

Yes, but we did manage to build the Gothic cathedrals, for example.

But not in maintaining viable government?

OTOH, perhaps Bernie Sanders, if elected, might confirm your proposition....

 

Again, there is no such thing as "equal protection of the law".

"Definition of socialism
"There are other synonyms for "socialist system" in the literature on the subject as well, for example, "Soviet-type system," "centrally administered economy," "centrally planned economy," "command economy," "and "state socialism." Janos Kornai, "The Socialist System," Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1992, p.10.

Profits and inequality are part of every socialist model.

 

It is in our Constitution. It must apply to something regarding the law.

 

1. All elites are self interested.
2. Yes, the Gothic cathedrals have been far more durable than European governments.
3. Americans have been founding and maintaining durable peoples' governments since 1620. Europeans don't do that.
4. The self interested DP elite rigged its own elections to stop Bernie Sanders.

 

The ideal of "equal protection of the law" sounds nice, but can never be achieved by human beings. Surely you know that.

 

It must have practical legal applications.

 

It establishes a target to aim at. We could get a lot closer to equal protection through reliance on random untampered juries.

 

i am looking at simpler issues of inequality.

employment at will is one such issue. the law is employment at the will of either party.

 

In America the elimination of minimum wage laws would be the first step toward eliminating unemployment for anyone able to work.

 

If you see no evidence, it is because you are not looking for it. Meaning, you accept the world as it is . Warts and all.

I am not saying the economic-equality should be the norm. The world tried that with Communism, which has been finally cast aside for its economic incompetency.

Agreed, but once again, it is not a question that inequality exists but that it is far too present. Replicants are just the bearers of an idea that was born with along with the nation. That is, everybody deserves to obtain what they can. Not bad, but hardly good enough.

When there are 14% of the American people - that is, around 40 million men, women, and children living below the Poverty Threshold - then any country with a heart will try to correct that monumental economic error*.

Uncle Sam, so far, has no heart ...

*Which is indeed correctable, if we would only stop the wanton waste of money being thrown at the DoD, when there is NO FOREIGN THREAT TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

The threat of perpetual-poverty exists inside the boundaries of America and it is real, not imagined ...

 

IMO, the USG should offer generous subsidies to low wage unskilled productive workers after the elimination of the minimum wage.
Yes, "wanton waste" is an inevitable result of all massive government programs including the DOD.

 

Capitalism has a natural rate of unemployment and Government Costs. The minimum wage cannot be zero.

A fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage and solving simple poverty through equal protection of the law regarding the legal concept of employment at the will of either party for unemployment compensation, solves for capitalism's natural rate of unemployment on an at-will basis in our at-will employment States.

 

I am not maintaining that it should be done away with. I am suggesting strongly that it should be made a Decent Minimum Wage - which is anywhere above the Poverty Threshold.

My Calculation:
*The Poverty-Threshold Income (for a family of 4) is $25k annually.
*That works out to $12/hour.
*Which should be the Minimum Wage throughout the US! And made such by Federal Law!

 

Well, I beg to differ on that one.

Europeans live decent lives with a National Healthcare System and free Tertiary Education.

We yanks can only dream about those two attributes ...