Economics Questions

Re: Rich Getting Richer, Poor Getting Poorer

Phi est aureum — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:08:57 GMT

Aha! After looking to find more of Mr. Davies' work, I found that he had redone the graphs to show a broader length of time, from 1970-2009, and adjusted for inflation. Check it out if you'd like to see some sweet graphs! As he put it, the middle class IS disappearing... They are getting richer along with the poor and the rich!

http://mercatus.org/publication/income-distribution-united-states

Re: Rich Getting Richer, Poor Getting Poorer

Bert — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 01:33:22 GMT

This is one of those things where you also look at perspective. Working a min wage job you can bring in 11-15 thousand a year (depends how consistent your hours are). Though someone who's "poor" can get an iPhone with internet access or a up to date laptop with much more ease than before (even compared to just 1, 5, 10 years ago). Someone who lives in "poverty" could fill their shelves with books from all the revered authors who's writings are still easily in print, or not. The market has widened the production of goods and made everything more accessible. One could become rather "wealthy" in a material sense depending on what they spend their money on. Though this is not apologetic to those who do manipulate and disorient markets for their own gain.

Re: Rich Getting Richer, Poor Getting Poorer

Wheylous — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 01:02:42 GMT

A few of the links here should be useful:

http://candlemind.com/projects/progclub/file/michael/ineqdescr.php

For example, U.S. Income Inequality: It's Not So Bad by Thomas A. Garrett

Rich Getting Richer, Poor Getting Poorer

Phi est aureum — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:28:59 GMT

http://www.learnliberty.org/content/unintended-consequences-price-controls

Antony Davies does some solid lectures/videos with learnliberty.org. In this, besides discussing price controls, he also addresses the myth that "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer," showing that the poor are getting richer too. He also discusses income mobility.

However, the statistics he uses are pre-2000s. I'd like to make some charts using some newer data along with older data. But all I can find from the Census Bureau is number based on quintiles instead of how he showed it, which was broken down further, like incomes $0-$15,000, $15,000-$25,000, etc.

Does anyone know where or how to find the data broken down further in this manner? Or I suppose if someone has already done a more recent breakdown of this with more recent data, that would be fine too, but the data would be nice to have, if possible.