If person A gets to chose between keeping a dime or giving someone like an employee a dollar, the employee will get many more dollars than if instead person’s A choice is to keep a dollar or give a dollar. The point is, by reducing marginal tax rates especially on pass through (unearned) income from 90% to 20% employees have much more incentive to keep more and pay less. And that is exactly what has happened, employers having more to gain by paying less are paying less.
So if you want less income inequality and a healthy Middle Class, you have higher marginal tax rates on large incomes. It really is that simple.
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Let’s not start doing what Republicans did during Obama’s presidency, saying that government numbers are made up because they don’t say what we want them to say. The vast majority of people working in the government are still the same ones that were there in 2016, despite the Trump administration’s attacks on them…they are processing the numbers and producing them the same way. And, to this point, we haven’t heard anything about the numbers being fudged to make Trump look better (and you can bet we would, especially since 75% of government workers are not supporting the shutdown).
The capital dumped into the economy will buoy it for a while still, despite how poor of a stimulus it was…that much money makes a difference. World economic forces are slowing down though, and the economic moves by the Trump administration will not help that and cause more problems here (because they are fools). We’re still likely to see the economy turn down in 2020, maybe even go into recession…politically that would be great, but it will cause a lot of pain for Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck. Maybe such an event will turn us towards a more equitable system, and get the wealthy to pay their fair share for the first time in 40 years, but I’m not holding my breath on that one as long as Republicans have any power in DC.
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The same issue was discussed in the pages of USA Today back in December and the conclusion isn’t good news at all:
… here’s the dirty little secret behind the numbers: The share of laid-off Americans even trying to get these benefits is the lowest on record. Some unemployed people who don’t apply … are among the nation’s growing legion of freelancers, contractors and temporary workers, many of whom either aren’t eligible or don’t think they are. Others are deterred by state cuts to benefits or state-imposed hurdles that have made it harder to apply for, and keep, benefits since the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. Still others are baby boomers who may decide to retire early rather than seek jobless benefits.
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