Wealth Redistribution Still Moving Upward

The Wealth Divide
The Growing Gap in the United States
Between the Rich and the Rest
An Interview with Edward Wolff
Edward Wolff is a professor of economics at New York University. He is the author of Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It, as well as many other books and articles on economic and tax policy. He is managing editor of the Review of Income and Wealth.

“The top 5 percent own more than half of all wealth.
In 1998, they owned 59 percent of all wealth. Or to put it another way, the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the population, collectively.
The top 20 percent owns over 80 percent of all wealth. In 1998, it owned 83 percent of all wealth.”

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html

 

Am I reading this wrong?
Today the Top 5% own 50% of the wealth, down from 59% 12 years ago?
The Top 20% own 80% of the wealth, down from 83%?

Seems to be going in your direction, moen.

 

Not that it would surprise any of us but "YES" you are having a little reading comprehension problem. Try reading the whole article. I know its long and has a lot of big words and all, but you might just learn something...reading comprehension issues aside of course.

 

I read the part where the author warned against confusing income with wealth. Income is earned, wealth is accumulated. How does one accumulate wealth? I would say you can be born into it obviously, like a Kennedy or Kerry, or you can accomplish it by working harder than everyone else & making responsible decisions as you go. It always goes back to working hard & being responsible, doesn't it?

But, hey, at least the wealth gap does seem to be getting smaller...you can cheer for that.

 

david: "working harder than everyone else & making responsible decisions as you go. It always goes back to working hard & being responsible, doesn't it?"

No sir it doesn't. Material inequalites in the expierances of people significantly effect thir ability to perform.

We should fix the structrual inequalitys in a American and then we would see true reforms in america. It always pays off to invest in human capital.

I would also like to calrifiey that I do not meen walefare as it now and think the currnt welfare system is a disgrace.

You are perpretating a Myth comminaly refferd to as "The Retoric of Poverty"

Check out this article

79 Geo. L.J. 1499 (1990-1991)
Rhetoric of Poverty: Their Immorality, Our Helplessness, The; Ross, Thomas

 

Here are the statistics on welfare recipients:
Traits of families on AFDC (1)

Race
--------------
White 38.8%
Black 37.2
Hispanic 17.8
Asian 2.8
Other 3.4

Time on AFDC
---------------------------
Less than 7 months 19.0%
7 to 12 months 15.2
One to two years 19.3
Two to five years 26.9
Over five years 19.6

Number of children
-------------------
One 43.2%
Two 30.7
Three 15.8
Four or more 10.3

Age of Mother
------------------
Teenager 7.6%
20 - 29 47.9
30 - 39 32.7
40 or older 11.8

Status of Father 1973 1992
-------------------------------------
Divorced or separated 46.5% 28.6
Deceased 5.0 1.6
Unemployed or Disabled 14.3 9.0
Not married to mother 31.5 55.3
Other or Unknown 2.7 5.5

 

What a load of crap!
Here's what you do:
Suck it up & do what's right. When you have a choice or decision to make, don't decide based on what's fun or popular or what feels good, make the responsible choice & think about the benefits or consequences 5, 10, 20 years down the road. Have a goal & pursue it!
If you can't look back and say you've made mature, responsible decisions in your life then you don't have the right to bash someone or take something or deny something from someone who has.
People have been born in the lap of luxury & died penniless. People have been born into pitiful conditions & overcome them. Your life is what you choose to make of it. Any argument to this statement only serves to make excuses and subsidizes underachievement.

 

Does the research you refer to offer any information on generation-to-generation AFDC recipients?

 

So let's punish them and tax them more, right Moen?...what should we tax them Moen? 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 or tax it all at 100%! Yes, yes...class warfare is so important for liberals so please tell us.

A little advice...You need to get out of your college office and learn a little about the real world, with REAL employers, with REAL payrolls and take some advice from even the movie Ghostbusters when this conversation came up...which is soooooo perfect for you liberal "educators" who always think they know better:

Dr Ray Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've "worked" in the private sector...They expect "results".

 

There is a story of this tv comedian named Ernie Kovacs who had IRS troubles for a long time. He thought it would be fair if the government got half his money. But the IRS wanted more than that. So he simply ignored them. Its nothing new for the government to demand more than thier fair share. You can always fight back. But first you need a pilot's license.

 

Let's not lose sight of the fact- based on moen's very own evidence- the gap is DECREASING.

 

David: Look its not that simple. Just because "some people who where poor are not as poor today" and some DA who where born rich are now broke does not mean that there are not systemic barriers to wealth in america. Hell I work a sales job for a software company. My scuess is 100% dependent on my work ethic. If I do well does that mean im better than other. Hell No. It means I am privledge and was able to take advantage of my privalge.


An example form my home state.

The wealtheist school distrect in Alabama spends more money a year than the 10 poorest combined. You can not tell me that if you are born in an affluent area in america (especaly considering that all funding for schools and ower governenment depends on the GDP of the area you live in ) That you do not have a better chance at sucess than someone who growes up in a poor area.


About excusses. Its not an excusse to say that if you go to a ****y school with no funding for books and extra coriculers that you will do worse in life than someone who does.

Take the blinders off and stop making yourself feel better.


The Rhetoric of Poverty: people in poor areas are imoral degeranerts and if they would only work hard their lives would not suck.


That is a BS way of looking at the world. Open you hart and find a little compaison and logic.


"Welfare": We need to completly revamp the way the governemnt invest in our people. Like the French if you are a citizen and work then you should be access to government support. A few ideas

1. Work in Americore for 5 years we will pay for your coledge and feed you and take care of you while you are in service. Same with army peace core and other National Service Organizations

2. If you work a low wage job you get food and travle support

3. women with kids get free child care if they work. This will do lots of good. A increase marginal wealth of poor working mothers and provide a safe learning enviorment for the kids. Hell staff them with colledge students and have the gov pay student loans of anyone that volinteers at the day care for 2000 hrs or more.


Lots of easy solutions. To incentivise people to work. The current sytem rewords not working that is the problem.


Also we need to massivley lower taxes on small busniess. I am all for suply side economics. We just need to combine it was a strong ethic of social justice

 

I think you've managed to prove my point.
If your success at work is dependent on your work ethic then you would control your own destiny, right? How does priviledge influence how hard you work?

 

David are you honestly saying that a child from a wealthy background will not have a very large advantage in life compared to a child from a low income family?
For starters that childs development will be better, it will eat better recieve a better level of health care and be able to attend better schools. Do you disagree with that so far? now on to higher education, tha child will have acess to a collage education much easier than the poorer child simply because the parents can afford to pay for it, again do you disagree?
The child from a wealthy background also will have a better chance in the employment market, it will have been to the right schools/collages, will have the right social contacts and dependent on the familys involvment the right connections in buisiness again David do you disagree?
A child from a deprived or disadvantaged background has to work that much harder to attain much that is given on a platter to a child from a wealthy background.
Now that is simple fact.

 

Welll...as I see it from the members who post here, most here in the forum were NOT born into a wealthy family and most here worked and earned their way up the social ladder. It wasn't given to us...we studied, worked and earned our way.

Yes...there are kids that are born into a family that is making it and yes, there are kids that are born into single parent mother who can't wait to run to the welfare office to claim another dependent.

All in all...most that are "making it" like many here in the forum WORKED for it and EARNED it. It wasn't given to us and troday, liberals want to make you feel guilty for succeeding. My great-great-grandfather who came to America (legally) according to Ellis Island documents came here with $7 to his name and guess what? There was no social services to "help" him and his family. He worked and did it on his OWN.

Kudos should go to those that study, work, and earn their way up the social ladder instead of waiting for the government to redistribute income from those that can to those that can't or wouldn't because they have been told by liberals that they are stuck and they need liberals to help them...and control their lives at the expense of somebody else.

 

Here is where making the distinction between 'middle class' and 'wealthy' relative (and a state of mind) really helps in a debate. When one places the upper end of the 'middle class' in the hundreds of thousands (when the real median household income is $40-some K and a third of the household incomes are below $30K), it really makes those people with a 'wealthy' state of mind seem so far up there.

 

This discussion is not about the fact that those born into wealthy and upper middle class have an advantage over the less fortunate, they do. This discussion is about the less fortunate using that fact as an excuse not to work hard an become successful on their own.

In my freshman year at college, there we two types of students in my dorm. The rich privileged kids who were there because they did not work hard in high school and couldn't make it into the ivy league schools their parents had hoped for. Then there were kids like me from modest middle class backgrounds who were at the top of the their classes in high school. Most of us were paying our way with financial aid, academic scholarships, and student loans while the rich kids enjoyed a free ride courtesy of mommy and daddy. Guess which group of students rose to the top by the time graduation rolled around?

There is no substitute for hard work and determination. Wealth can give them a head start, but if they don't run, they won't win the race. Is it a fact that those from modest backgrounds must work harder than those from rank and privilege? The answer is YES! My response is TOUGH S H I T! Work that much harder so that someday, your children will be a member of the rank and privilege that you so envy. STOP MAKING EXCUSES! The people from foreign countries would kill for the opportunity that is afforded to every American citizen. The attitude of entitlement that has overcome this entire country makes me sick and is IMO, the biggest threat to the overall stability of our Nation.

 

You just described our present President and our previous one. However it shouldnt be contemptuous for one to have thier parents afford them a tuition. There are lots of kids who get a ''free ride'' in college who work just as hard as those who use student loans and have part time jobs to pay for thier higher education. I'm sure there are some who cannot cut it no matter how hard they try. Rich or poor.

 

"Well the world needs ditch diggers too!" Judge Smails, Caddyshack 1980

 

""I can never give back the advantages I enjoyed by growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in a society that stacked the educational, social, and employment deck in my favor by virtue of my race." But Ross does not stop here. He goes on to say:

And As I cannot give back the advantages of my childhood or erase the disadvantages experienced by my black contemporaries, I also cannot avoid the continuing advantages I experience while living in a culture still gripped with prejudices that accord to me an assumption of worthiness that it denies to blacks, women, and others deemed different by the dominant classAnd the fact that I receive it, wanted or not, keeps me in a state of complicity."
Thomas Ross
JUST STORIES: HOW THE LAW EMBODIES RACISM AND BIAS by Thomas Ross. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. 161 pp.


I think some of you are missing the boat entirely. Privaldge is omnipresent. we should not limit this discoution to simple themes like poor good rich bad. or poor lazy rich hard working protestant that works to show themeslefs aproved


Its very simple. In america their are barriers to sucsess for large portions of our society. We the fortunate few who went to colledge work have jobs realativly stable familyes as ross put it recive a "gift" every day.


We have a social ethic responsibility to try and improve the terrible conditions of the less fortanute.


I think some of you should invetigate the motives behind why you can't undertand that they idea that it is a MYTH that poor people are poor because of some persoanl flaw like a lack of a work ethic or other degenerate quality.


Some of you should read about carl jung and his theory of the "shadow". A quick brake down is that we say things/ people are immoral to hide some fealing of lack in our selfes
http://www.shadowdance.com/shadow/theshadow.html


Leigh: I don't think your example of dumb people whos parents bougth their way into the state university is generalizable. Sure they where das with money. proboly had "more money then sense", but I don't think that really matters. Please explain how some rich people being stuipied would mean that male children who grow up in section 8 housing without a dad are vastly more likly to die or go to jail before their 30 then children (of any race) who grow up in the suberbs


Here i a link to hundreds of articles that describe the fact that $ is 100% corelated to acadimic achivement

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=17983987034935798688&hl=en&as_sdt=200

And finaly a quote from one of my fav philosophers

" "Our political task," argues Negri, "is not simply to resist these processes but to redirect and reorganise them towards new ends."--- Antonio Negrie


Food for thought