Harry Guerrilla
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This is backwards logic. Safer working conditions and improvements in technology make workers more productive. Economists, politicians, and pundits have been claiming for years that a good way to increase wages is to increase labor productivity. Even when we tease out the capital and technological productivity changes during the last couple of decades, labor productivity has overall increased.
Wages and compensation stagnating: | State of Working America
View attachment 67116853
Productivity Growth by Major Sector, 1947-2010. Bar Chart
I never argued against this point and didn't even know we were discussing it. Do you want to interject anymore strawmen and irrelevant information into this conversation?
You are obviously going to believe what you want, despite overwhelming evidence that shows that the average laborer is becoming more productive, but wages have been severely lagging and roughly stagnant since 1964. You are unable to fully explain the differences with health insurance and $401k contributions.
View attachment 67116854
Notice: Data not available: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
You have done nothing to counter my argument but you put together a crappy argument using Mother Jones, which is making the same mistakes as you are.
Effective tax rates ≠ Statutory tax rates.
This is just something you seem to not understand.
Congratulations! You've just won an argument against your own strawman! No one said Effective tax rates = Statutory tax rates.
I didn't say that it doesn't.
I'm saying that, income does not automatically increase at the same consistent rate and that assuming income should of increased to X is meaningless.
The cost of doing business has increased from some regulation and competition from firms employing cheaper labor, automation, and ergonomics is more widely present
Just heading you off at the pass.
Some others here like to make this argument, without any evidence.
Wage growth does not come at a consistent rate.
The "overwhelming evidence" fails to include increases in government transfer payments and untaxed benefits as compensation.
It also fails to include the changes in average household sizes.
The data has been cherry picked, in order to make point of a problem that doesn't exist.
Your whole argument rests on the fallacy that I claimed that wage growth grows at a constant rate per year. It doesn't. However, if you look at the long term trends, wage growth has not kept up with worker productivity.
The middle class was an American institution that lasted roughly after WW II to the 1970's. For example, if the 1979 middle income quintile average pre tax household income grew at a rate of 2% year, it would be at $94,189 rather than $64,500 (in 2007).
http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/average_before-tax_income.pdf
The American middle class is a stagnating and decaying institution.
We have seen stagnating wages and an erosion of the middle class. We have not seen wages keep up or surpass worker productivity nor have we seen the middle class strengthened over the last three decades.
The evidence is abundant. I don't even know why this is debatable.
I'm sorry but your "evidence" that you posted says that, "During the past 30 years, they have been cut at a much faster rate than middle- and low-income taxpayers'."
I've already shown that to be bullcrap, because effective tax rates are different from statutory tax rates.
You do not know what you are talking about and using Mother Jones, as "evidence" continues to show that you still don't know what you are talking about.
They are making the exact same crappy, ignorant argument that you are.
Their statement you bolded above is not based on statutory tax rates, which is where your strawman falls by the wayside.
They specifically stated that: "But the superrich don't pay as much as they used to—and thanks to a combination of tax cuts and preferential tax policies, their tax obligations can be less demanding than the so-called little people's."
Labor productivity is going to go up as firms implement newer, more efficient technologies, that makes it easier for workers to produce more units per hour and causes the firm to need less workers.
That doesn't actually translate to workers physically doing more work.
Was it not you that said this and built your assumption off the average rate of 2% a year?
Wages have increased at a rate lower than benefit increases and government transfer payments.
That is true, but if you only focus on wages and not total house compensation, total household income supplements and benefits, I'd see where you'd come to the conclusion that the middle class is stagnating.
Your whole argument rests on the fallacy that I claimed that wage growth grows at a constant rate per year. It doesn't. However, if you look at the long term trends, wage growth has not kept up with worker productivity.
We have seen stagnating wages and an erosion of the middle class. We have not seen wages keep up or surpass worker productivity nor have we seen the middle class strengthened over the last three decades.
The evidence is abundant. I don't even know why this is debatable.
of course it hasn't. and claims that it should have are built upon the Labor Theory of Value, which is such utter and complete bunk that even Lenin was forced to abandon it after attempting to put it into practice. If a brilliant engineer designs a machine that will allow each worker to double their production without working harder, and the company spends alot of money purchasing said machine and installing it, then why in the world should the productivity increases go to the worker rather than the engineer and paying back the company for its' purchase?
largely because it depends upon a number of flawed assumptions. no one seems to be able to provide a definitive way of teasing "the middle class" out of "the general population", for example - leaving it a completely subjective point of study.
secondly, it tends to assume that people do not move, which is incorrect - even if total compensation were stationary in real terms (which it is not), the individuals within the labor pool would still be making more as they aged.
Older higher income workers would retire and be replaced by newer workers who upon entering the workforce make a smaller wage. Generally speaking, if you graduate high school, get married before you have kids, stay married, don't do drugs, and work, you will move up life's ladder. Where the "the middle class is being destroyed" figures come from is two places: 1. the expansion in the portion of the populace that does not follow the above rules. 2. the fact that increases in compensation have been tilted to benefits rather than wages due to A) the tax advantage to doing so and B) the rapidly rising cost of health insurance.
so why is it debatable? mostly because (and take notes, because this is important) wanting something to be true so that you can try to divide Americans by class and turn them on each other does not - actually - make it true.
That's not true.
The effective tax rates of everyone else, were less than those of the top quintile.
Their argument is crap and not based on reality.
Their tax obligations are greater than the "little people's," as the evidence shows.
I posted the link, showing the effective tax rates and you're still peddling this nonsense.
Effective tax rates are taxes that people actually pay, which includes deductions and other write offs.
The top quintile has the largest tax rates of everyone, still.
Thanks for your opinion!
"Payroll taxes (deductions for Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance) are mostly paid by the bottom 90 percent of earners. When they're factored in on top of income tax, the gap between the tax rates at the very top and everyone else shrinks even more—so much that the effective tax rate for people earning more than $370,000 is nearly the same as for those earning between $43,000 and $69,000 a year."
"Payroll taxes now make up nearly as much of federal tax revenue as individual income tax. Meanwhile, revenues from corporate taxes have decreased significantly over the past 50 years."
"Corporations exploit various loopholes and tax breaks to reduce their IRS bills—perhaps none more notoriously than General Electric. Though the corporate (statutory) tax rate is 35%, GE has paid nothing near that for nearly a decade." (effective rate)
Only Little People Pay Taxes | Mother Jones
I will say it again. Even when you tease out the contributions of capital and technology, labor productivity has increased. I posted plenty of data on this already.
I did and that is not a far out assumption given the growth of labor productivity during that time span. However, I was speaking about a trend. Trends do not have to grow at a constant rate. You can have short term fluctuations, but a stable long term trend.
Your previous interjection that wages do not grow at a constant rate is correct. However, there are long term trends. Do you understand the difference?
We already had this discussion where you couldn't adequately explain the differences with health care benefits, $401k, and other benefits. However, you seem to be of the persuasion that if you repeat something enough, it must be true.
That's not true.
The effective tax rates of everyone else, were less than those of the top quintile.
Their argument is crap and not based on reality.
Their tax obligations are greater than the "little people's," as the evidence shows.
I posted the link, showing the effective tax rates and you're still peddling this nonsense.
Effective tax rates are taxes that people actually pay, which includes deductions and other write offs.
The top quintile has the largest tax rates of everyone, still.
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