Category: Class

So McDonalds put out a sample budget for low-income people to live on. The budget has been relentlessly mocked since then. In response to that mocking, Timothy B. Lee authored a post today over at Wonkblog titled “That McDonald’s budget people are making fun of isn’t cruel. It’s realistic.” Lee then goes through the budget… Continue reading The response to the McDonalds budget

I previously shared data from Pew’s Economic Mobility Project about social mobility (I, II). As far as income mobility goes, you are 10x more likely to wind up in the richest fifth as an adult if you were born there than if you were born in the poorest fifth. As far as wealth mobility goes,… Continue reading What’s more important: a college degree or being born rich?

New post at Policy Shop. Excerpt: Although things seem quite gloomy on first glance, they are not nearly as hopeless on a second look. While it is true that pressuring capital owners to give up more of the national income has obvious limits, there are other ways to go about this. Most notably, we can… Continue reading Policy Shop: Challenge Inequality by Changing Who Owns Capital

New post at policy shop. Excerpt: A compelling new study out in the American Sociological Review pins the cause quite convincingly on the erosion of union power in the face of computerization. Tali Kristal, the author of the study, looks beyond the overall declining share of labor income and into specific sectors of the economy… Continue reading Policy Shop: New Evidence of How Declining Union Power Has Hurt Worker Wages

New post at policy shop. Excerpt: So the consumption metric is a ridiculous distraction. Not only does it turn out that consumption inequality has mirrored income inequality over the last few decades, but the focus also misses so many of the things that income is about. Of course, the conservatives who bring it up do… Continue reading Policy Shop: Why So-Called Consumption Inequality Misses the Point