Results 31 to 35 of 35
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02-05-2009, 12:55 PM #31
That first link is information taken from a Census Bureau report, the same Census Bureau report where I got this information:
Over the past two decades, the number of households in those brackets (households that earn between $25,000 and $75,000) decreased by 3.9%, from 48.2% to 44.3%. During the same time period, the number of households with incomes below $25,000 decreased 3.5%, from 28.7% to 25.2%, while the number of households with incomes above $75,000 increased over 7%, from 23.2% to 30.4%.
...which says the lower class and middle class are shrinking, while the upper class is growing. If the lower class is shrinking, that means people are moving up to the middle class, they can't go down. And if people are moving from the lower class into the middle class, yet the middle class is still shrinking and the upper class growing, that means even more people are moving up into the upper class. So lower class is moving into middle class and middle class is moving into upper class...more people are moving up than are moving down.
And the third article helps prove that...there are more millionaires than ever in America right now...more people are moving up in income.
So apparently the middle class is shrinking...but so is the lower class and the upper class is growing. So there are fewer poor people and more rich people...I thought that was a good thing?
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02-05-2009, 06:04 PM #32
You might have missed these points in the articles:
Heart & Alliance article - The graphs are trending upwards. A greater % of the population are in poverty now than in 2000.
Daily Kos article - Last paragraph: "The hard numbers are there. The stories are out there. The population is feeling the squeeze. The gap has gotten wider - no matter how you slice the numbers. Wages. Income. Ability to afford healthcare. Ability to afford food, medicine, gasoline. Ability to get a good affordable education. And if this trend doesn't reverse itself soon, than what does that say for our country's future?"
The final "english article" (though alittle outdated - 2004) says this in the middle of the article: "The studies suggest that despite falling wages for nonmanagement employees in 2004, the fortunes of those at the top continued to rise."
I think it's a mute point to continue to debate this. We both look at this economy differently; so let's agree to disagree and leave it at that. Take care.
Rich
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02-05-2009, 06:33 PM #33
OPT I don't find those stats to help your argument much. Maybe its just the way I'm looking at it but the cost of living has changed a lot in the past two decades. Not only that you have more households with two people working instead of one. The stats you show are the change in households (not individuals), if you have two people working in one household its not hard to get out of the under 25K bracket, and its not hard to move up from 25-75K bracket.
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02-05-2009, 06:47 PM #34
Obviously we don't. I see things differently from the majority of Americans apparently, I have no problem with rich people, I don't care if they make more money, and I don't think they should pay more than their fair share in taxes...but apparently most people do based on who's in the White House right now.
I understand what you're saying about cost of living, but if the cost of living is rising and people's income is rising, they're still not moving backwards. But almost all income and economic statistics are presented in terms of households and discrepancies between 1 person and 2 person households are taken into account when preparing the statistics. Something as simple as 2 people earn more than 1 person isn't going to be overlooked by economic scholars.
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02-09-2009, 03:41 AM #35
The old Reagan tax cuts that have proven not to work. I'm sure they want to give 429 billion to rich and 1 billion in cuts to everyone else.. The thing that makes me laugh is the right is fighting the money to improve the roads and bridges and saying spending isn't stimulus.
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Originally Posted by richloughlin 
