As I wrote previously, student debt is generally an overblown issue. Students, as a class, are a relatively affluent bunch and are set to make, at the median, an extra $1 million over the course of their lifetimes. Like most groups, students would like society to give them more money, but to present that desire… Continue reading Balance sheet accounting for student debt
Author: Matt Bruenig
Confusion around food deserts
The reason poor people face so many problems is that they do not have very much money. This seems like a simple point, so simple in fact that even raising it borders on condescension. But this fact seems lost on a great number of so-called activists. One such group of activists are those who call… Continue reading Confusion around food deserts
The poor pay 16x higher excise tax rate than the rich
The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities put out a nice series of charts today detailing the distributional impact of various regressive taxes in the United States. One of the findings is that the lowest quintile of households pay 1.6% of their income in excise taxes each year while the top 1% pay only 0.1%… Continue reading The poor pay 16x higher excise tax rate than the rich
Further rebuttal of just desert theory
I recently explained how the just desert framework does not actually lead to the conclusion conservatives claim it does. The just desert framework emphasizes compensating people according to how much they produce. Conservatives think that this framework leads to the conclusion that laissez-faire capitalism is the most just economic form. I raise the objection that… Continue reading Further rebuttal of just desert theory
Welfare for the rich
Matt Yglesias has a nice chart today comparing the cost of the mortgage interest tax deduction to the cost of other kinds of housing subsidies: It turns out that the mortgage interest deduction absolutely dwarfs the housing subsidies provided primarily for low-income renters. The mortgage interest tax deduction skews to the wealthy for a few… Continue reading Welfare for the rich