Over on the "Dangerous Ideas" thread, there's was a bit of sideline debate going on between MattR and me, and I think this one deserves it's own thread, framed in the form of a traditional debate proposition. I am going to be busy this afternoon, but I will definitely get back to it. In the meantime, here are the initial posts on the subject. Let's get read to rummmmbbbbbbbbleeeeeeee!!! emphasis mine. My response: MattR's counter response:
"However, the bottom two tax brackets are listed at 10% and 15% for those making less than $10,450 and $39,800, respectively. The median US income is $44,000. If you know the definition of median, it's pretty easy to see that about half of the country makes less than $40k a year." This is where I have a problem with his argument. The median is just the center and does not take into account how many are above or below the median line. If there are three people, one with one orange, one with two oranges and one with 12 oranges, the median of the three is two oranges I would like to see what the mean income is, especially with the top and bottom 5% eliminated as outliers. I think that is a more accurate measurment of what people make.
Do you mean exactly the opposite of this, or am I misreading it? The median is two oranges because exactly one person has more and one person has less. It *only* takes into account how many are above or below the median line. RS
Your example offers a good reason to use the median instead of your preferred mean. If you were to claim that the average person had 5 oranges, you would have a misleading statistic suggesting that people had more oranges than they really did. As to the substance, the two posters are clearly talking past each other -- no surprise. To the extent it does not devolve into a preening/pissing contest, my prediction is that solid arguments about the growing gap in incomes and net wealth (suggesting the poor are growing) will be responded to with data about GNP and economic indicators (suggesting the economy is doing well). In the end, the mean and median of this thread will be one apple, one orange.
Anyone who is arguing GDP or mean income will end up on Keller's side because the wealthy are getting remarkably wealthier here, at a faster rate. If you argue the median, it's a lot muddier. If all of your income is as a wage-earner, you are more likely to be stagnant in your earning power now than any other time in the past 20 years. If you have a substantial percentage of income coming from capital investments, you were doing well before and you're still doing really well now.
With a big enough sample, the median and the mode are usually pretty close to each other, aren't they?
The good news is that prices on LCD Hidef TV's are coming down and even the poor can afford them soon
Yes, I am told the USA is getting poorer. Maybe I should seriously consider moving back to Argentina.
If you've got a $2000 debit card from FEMA they are apparently very affordable.... (not based on any facts whatsoever)
Which is why the median and/or mode make more sense than the mean. The mean does not remove the outliers. The median and mode both do.
How do you know that? The problem I have with the analysis of the "gap between the rich and the poor" is that there is this assumption that individuals stay in one group. When you think about it, most people start off poor. When you graduate from school and go out on your first job you usually do not make a lot of money. but in time you get promotions and move up the ladder and your wages increase. Eventually you start thinking about retirement and you even start to invest. Then you retire and your wages go to nothing. This is a natural cycle. We are always replenishing the "poor" with new young people, and immigrants. The fact that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening could possibly be an indicator that there are a lot of opportunities in this country for people to realy improve themselves over the course of their lives. Is that really a bad thing? I think a better standard would be, what are the living conditions of the "poor" in this country. can anyone seriously argue that the actual living conditions of the "poor" are worse now, than say 100 years ago?
They scary thing is that they could both be right at the same time. In one sense average income could be going up (if the top 10% get richer), and there could be increasing numbers of people earning under the poverty line (if the bottom 90% get start earning less) at the same time. I'm sure someone will bring up WalMart within the next 20 posts...
Wait - this thread title is misleading. Mods, please remove the "Resolved" until we, as a group, can get to the bottom of this.
I agree with Michael Russ... or at least, makes sense. I think, however, that an increase in the "poor" could be either: 1. an increase in young or immigrants as he suggests or 2. An increase in the # of people unable or unwilling to escape the poverty level. The other problem is that the definition of poor is set by the govt. and changes often as new definitions occur to bean-counters. I don't where you live, but in California, $8,000 is not just poor, it's DIRT poor. Here in Florida, it's dirt and grass poor. Who came up with this number?
No, it's debate nomenclature. "Resolved:" means it's what we are debating, not that it's actually resolved to be the truth.
With regard to what I bolded in your post - do you really think that there are people who purposely choose to be poor?
In a macro sense, they do. People who are born poor are the most likely to be poor in adulthood, and people who are born rich are the most likely to be rich in adulthood. This isn't rocket science. And while we can trot out a bevy of self-made millionaires who are the exception to that macro truth, it doesn't change the macro truth.
No. USA isn't getting poorer. You can argue the poorest groups in USA may not get better but they are not getting worse. And the richeset groups get richer so you end up with the whole country gets richer. 1) The poorest--people live in welfare, etc. You still get government housing project, you still got food stamp, and cash asistance. All those are inflation adjustable. And inflation isn't too much at all. You probably don't have a car--good, saving gas money, insurance money, etc. And you don't have to pay big house payment because you cannot affort one so no bank can rip you off. Food is much cheaper so those clothes made in China. You may not better, and you may not worse. 2) The richest--no matter what, they always get richer. 3) People in the middle. Well, at least economy still is going so a little wage increase even though it is small. Big boost on house price, so everyone has the paper wealth and many dip into HEL to spend a heck of it. Here I see the only problem is at the low end of this group. Very small saving, then a big illness may broke them regardless have insurance or not. Totally the nation is getting richer. But of course, the whole world order was set to let USA gets richer. But if US dollar one day is no longer a base for whole world finance and economy, then after that USA will get poorer.