6 Ways Income Inequality Makes Your Life Worse

[thereisnospoon]

Do the rich get these services for free which the "people in poverty get for free.."

People in poverty in the USA get:
a) Free Cell phone (my cell phone I PAY is about $100/month)
if the poor person receives just one of the below FREE entitlements:
* Food stamps * Medicaid * Section 8 * Supplemental Security Income * National School Lunch Program

b) 40 million Americans on food stamps get $200/month in free food.

it cost $75.7 billion in 2011 compared to $35 billion in 2008; and enrollment has hit an all-time high of 46.7 million recipients. Meanwhile, the number of children receiving free school lunches has inflated from 18 to 21 million — an unprecedented jump —
about 2.1 million households (6 million) use Section 8 the Housing Choice Voucher program, pays a large

c) portion of the rents and utilities of or the Housing Choice Voucher Program up to $1,000 /month in FREE housing...

So these people get
=== $ 5,666 in EIC cash,
=== $12,000 free housing ,
=== $ 2,400 free food,
=== $ 1,200 in free cell phone plus
=== $ 5,000 a year in free health care from Medicaid.
So this is about $26,000 a year in FREE MONEY, free goods and free services...

Do any rich people get any of these services for free? If they do they are breaking the law!

And conservatives would take every nickel of that away from the poor, if they ever had the votes.

Then our poor people would be really poor, and conservatives would think they'd made America a better place.

That is how sick conservatism is.

Do you ever tire of making up nonsense and posting it here?

 

[Londoner]

I wouldn't put all the blame at Reagan's feet. Clinton did his fair share too.

Agree 100%. Clinton sold us a false bill of goods with NAFTA

 

[Spiderman]

Its in the OP. You are interested in the answers to those questions are you not?

I don't buy it.

Who is pressuring you to spend more?

Is there some rich guy with a gun to your head making you buy a new i phone every 6 months?

Making you buy a new car when your 5 year old paid for car runs just fine?

Here's a novel concept: If you buy shit you can't afford then it's your own fault and no own else's

Thats the funny thing about the truth. The truth dont give a dam if you "buy it" or not.

What pressure do people have to buy what they can't afford?

Who is applying that pressure?

It's a cop out that is the truth.

Or is the truth simply that people are too stupid to follow a simple budget?

 

[hazlnut]

1. Income inequality forces Americans into debt.​

As the wealthy become wealthier, they create an “economic arms race in which the middle class has been spending beyond their means in order to keep up,” a 2013 study from the University of Chicago’s Marianne Bertrand and Adair Morse concludes.
“What you think you need depends on the context you find yourself in,” says Cornell economist Robert H. Frank, who has written about the “expenditure cascades.” “And standards tend to be local. When most of the income gains are going to the very top, the people around them feel relatively poorer and spend more because of that.” Lower- and middle-income Americans, in other words, are not forced to buy expensive cares or houses, but they feel pressured to do so, leading to an increase in the personal bankruptcy rate and a plummeting savings rate.

The wealthy bid up the the prices of real estate, create a boom in more expensive restaurants, bars, and grocery stores, and effectively price out their lower-income neighbors or force them to spend more to continue living in the community.

?Trickle-down consumption?: How rising inequality can leave everyone worse off

2. Income inequality makes America sick.​

Researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health found that women living in areas with large gaps between the “haves” and “have-nots” are at greater risk of being depressed and are nearly twice as likely to suffer from depression compared to the women living in areas that have a more equal income distribution.
Meanwhile, though American life expectancy has increased dramatically over past decades, research shows that those gains are going mostly to people at the upper end of the income ladder. Life expectancy of male workers retiring at 65 has grown by six years in the top half of the income distribution but only 1.3 years in the bottom half over the last 30 years, for instance. “Life expectancy has increased mainly among the privileged class,” Economic Policy Institute economist Monique Morrissey told the Washington Post. “For many people, raising the retirement age would amount to a significant benefit cut.”
The lack of health care providers in poorer communities and lack of education about health care conditions means that lower-income Americans are much more likely to develop and live with chronic medical conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. A study by the National Urban League Policy estimates that U.S. health care disparities have contributed to $59.9 billion in excess spending, a price tag that will fall significantly as lower-income Americans start accessing health care services through the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.

How The United States' Growing Income Inequality Is Hurting Women's Mental Health | ThinkProgress

3. Income inequality makes America less safe.​

Statistical patterns show that crime rates increase with rising economic inequality. For instance, a 1999 Harvard analysis of the homicide rates in each state and the District of Columbia found that as the gap between the rich and the poor rose, the rate of homicide rose along with it. Income inequality alone accounted for “74 percent of the variance in murder rates and half of the aggravated assaults,” the research concluded. A 2002 World Bank study confirmed these results, concluding that homicide and an unequal distribution of resources are inextricably tied throughout the world.
The National Bureau of Economic Research has developed an even more precise number, reporting that “a twenty percent drop in wages leads to a 12 to 18 percent increase in youth crime.” Other analysis has found that a 1 percentage point increase in the Gini index (a measure of wealth inequality) produces, on average, a 3.6 percent increase in the homicide rate.

ftp://psyftp.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/sshrc2004/wilkinsonCrime.pdf

4. Income inequality makes America less democratic.​

A large body of research suggests that high inequality leads to lower levels of representative democracy and a higher probability of revolution, as poorer citizens become convinced that the government is only serving and representing the interests of the rich. And today’s political candidates and parties are relying more on deep pocketed campaign donors than at any other time since the early 1970s, when Congress first enacted campaign finance laws.
The Huffington Post’s Paul Blumenthal recently pointed out that “the top 0.01 percent of campaign donors — one percent of the one percent — contributed more than 40 percent of all the money spent in the 2012 elections.” Compare that to 1980, when the top 0.01 percent of campaign donors accounted for just under 15 percent of all the political contributions. Today’s rich also donate millions to Political Action Committees (PACs) and so-called 501(c)4 organizations in an effort to influence the politics and public policy. The Washington Post reported this month that the 17 groups that are funded by conservative donors Charles and David Koch “raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign” — more than Democrats and Republicans spent in the entire 2000 election.
Harvard economics professor Edward L. Glaeser argues that as the rich become richer and secure more political influence, they support policies that make them wealthier at the expense of everyone else. “If the rich can influence political outcomes through lobbying activities or membership in special interest groups, then more inequality could lead to less redistribution rather than more,” he explained in a 2006 paper.

http://www.economics.cornell.edu/et17/Erik Thorbecke files/Socioeconomic impact.pdf
How The 0.01 Percent Underwrites, And Undermines, Politics

5. Income inequality undermines the American dream.

​

New research finds that while economic mobility in the United States has stayed flat for two decades, the distance between the richest Americans and the poorest has grown dramatically. So if social mobility is a ladder, this means “the rungs of the ladder have grown further apart (inequality has increased), but children’s chances of climbing from lower to higher rungs have not changed,” the researchers note.
This intergenerational mobility is significantly lower in the United States than in most other developed countries. The chances of a child moving out of poverty are about half as high in the U.S. as in Denmark, for instance, leading Richard Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at England’s University of Nottingham, to conclude, “If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark.”
Other research has found that economic mobility depends heavily on geography, and in particular, that areas with strong middle classes have higher rates. Places with lower and less progressive state income taxes, on the other hand, have lower rates of mobility.

Equality of Opportunity

6. Income inequality is undermining long-term economic growth.​

Societies with greater income inequality experience slower and less stable economic growth, a recent global comparison from the International Monetary Fund concluded, and see far shorter economic expansions.
They “are more vulnerable to both financial crises and political instability” and, if hit by external shocks, “often stumble into gridlock rather than agree to tough policies needed to keep growth alive,” the report found. As a result, American income trends suggest that current economic expansions “could last just one-third as long as in the late 1960s.”

How Inequality Hurts the Economy - Businessweek

All sorts of correlation not equaling causation happening here.

Be more specific.

If you can...

 

[The T]

Ultra wealthy CEOs have said they base their salary demands on what the other guys are making. It is literally just a number to them as it has no real connection to what they could buy with it.

As long as they can be competitive they will try and be the best.

I doubt your claim is true. Like most of what you post, I'm sure you simply made it up.

CEO's demand what they think they can get. They generally base it on performance milestones.

For those who have never worked outside of McDonalds or a government make-work job, what this means is that when a new CEO comes in, his pay is about zero. He is compensated (or she, as the case may be) based on meeting performance goals. If sales meet X with a margin of Y, then pay is Z.

So typically, a CEO will boast that he can deliver certain levels of performance, and the compensation package is structured to reflect those claims. Fail to perform, and get nothing.

lol

Brilliant retort son. He's correct.

 

[ClosedCaption]

I don't buy it.

Who is pressuring you to spend more?

Is there some rich guy with a gun to your head making you buy a new i phone every 6 months?

Making you buy a new car when your 5 year old paid for car runs just fine?

Here's a novel concept: If you buy shit you can't afford then it's your own fault and no own else's

Thats the funny thing about the truth. The truth dont give a dam if you "buy it" or not.

What pressure do people have to buy what they can't afford?

Who is applying that pressure?

It's a cop out that is the truth.

Or is the truth simply that people are too stupid to follow a simple budget?

Do you want the answers or not? Its in the OP and I included links

 

[ClosedCaption]

1. Income inequality forces Americans into debt.​

As the wealthy become wealthier, they create an “economic arms race in which the middle class has been spending beyond their means in order to keep up,” a 2013 study from the University of Chicago’s Marianne Bertrand and Adair Morse concludes.
“What you think you need depends on the context you find yourself in,” says Cornell economist Robert H. Frank, who has written about the “expenditure cascades.” “And standards tend to be local. When most of the income gains are going to the very top, the people around them feel relatively poorer and spend more because of that.” Lower- and middle-income Americans, in other words, are not forced to buy expensive cares or houses, but they feel pressured to do so, leading to an increase in the personal bankruptcy rate and a plummeting savings rate.

The wealthy bid up the the prices of real estate, create a boom in more expensive restaurants, bars, and grocery stores, and effectively price out their lower-income neighbors or force them to spend more to continue living in the community.

?Trickle-down consumption?: How rising inequality can leave everyone worse off

2. Income inequality makes America sick.​

Researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health found that women living in areas with large gaps between the “haves” and “have-nots” are at greater risk of being depressed and are nearly twice as likely to suffer from depression compared to the women living in areas that have a more equal income distribution.
Meanwhile, though American life expectancy has increased dramatically over past decades, research shows that those gains are going mostly to people at the upper end of the income ladder. Life expectancy of male workers retiring at 65 has grown by six years in the top half of the income distribution but only 1.3 years in the bottom half over the last 30 years, for instance. “Life expectancy has increased mainly among the privileged class,” Economic Policy Institute economist Monique Morrissey told the Washington Post. “For many people, raising the retirement age would amount to a significant benefit cut.”
The lack of health care providers in poorer communities and lack of education about health care conditions means that lower-income Americans are much more likely to develop and live with chronic medical conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure. A study by the National Urban League Policy estimates that U.S. health care disparities have contributed to $59.9 billion in excess spending, a price tag that will fall significantly as lower-income Americans start accessing health care services through the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion.

How The United States' Growing Income Inequality Is Hurting Women's Mental Health | ThinkProgress

3. Income inequality makes America less safe.​

Statistical patterns show that crime rates increase with rising economic inequality. For instance, a 1999 Harvard analysis of the homicide rates in each state and the District of Columbia found that as the gap between the rich and the poor rose, the rate of homicide rose along with it. Income inequality alone accounted for “74 percent of the variance in murder rates and half of the aggravated assaults,” the research concluded. A 2002 World Bank study confirmed these results, concluding that homicide and an unequal distribution of resources are inextricably tied throughout the world.
The National Bureau of Economic Research has developed an even more precise number, reporting that “a twenty percent drop in wages leads to a 12 to 18 percent increase in youth crime.” Other analysis has found that a 1 percentage point increase in the Gini index (a measure of wealth inequality) produces, on average, a 3.6 percent increase in the homicide rate.

ftp://psyftp.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/sshrc2004/wilkinsonCrime.pdf

4. Income inequality makes America less democratic.​

A large body of research suggests that high inequality leads to lower levels of representative democracy and a higher probability of revolution, as poorer citizens become convinced that the government is only serving and representing the interests of the rich. And today’s political candidates and parties are relying more on deep pocketed campaign donors than at any other time since the early 1970s, when Congress first enacted campaign finance laws.
The Huffington Post’s Paul Blumenthal recently pointed out that “the top 0.01 percent of campaign donors — one percent of the one percent — contributed more than 40 percent of all the money spent in the 2012 elections.” Compare that to 1980, when the top 0.01 percent of campaign donors accounted for just under 15 percent of all the political contributions. Today’s rich also donate millions to Political Action Committees (PACs) and so-called 501(c)4 organizations in an effort to influence the politics and public policy. The Washington Post reported this month that the 17 groups that are funded by conservative donors Charles and David Koch “raised at least $407 million during the 2012 campaign” — more than Democrats and Republicans spent in the entire 2000 election.
Harvard economics professor Edward L. Glaeser argues that as the rich become richer and secure more political influence, they support policies that make them wealthier at the expense of everyone else. “If the rich can influence political outcomes through lobbying activities or membership in special interest groups, then more inequality could lead to less redistribution rather than more,” he explained in a 2006 paper.

http://www.economics.cornell.edu/et17/Erik Thorbecke files/Socioeconomic impact.pdf
How The 0.01 Percent Underwrites, And Undermines, Politics

5. Income inequality undermines the American dream.

​

New research finds that while economic mobility in the United States has stayed flat for two decades, the distance between the richest Americans and the poorest has grown dramatically. So if social mobility is a ladder, this means “the rungs of the ladder have grown further apart (inequality has increased), but children’s chances of climbing from lower to higher rungs have not changed,” the researchers note.
This intergenerational mobility is significantly lower in the United States than in most other developed countries. The chances of a child moving out of poverty are about half as high in the U.S. as in Denmark, for instance, leading Richard Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus of Social Epidemiology at England’s University of Nottingham, to conclude, “If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark.”
Other research has found that economic mobility depends heavily on geography, and in particular, that areas with strong middle classes have higher rates. Places with lower and less progressive state income taxes, on the other hand, have lower rates of mobility.

Equality of Opportunity

6. Income inequality is undermining long-term economic growth.​

Societies with greater income inequality experience slower and less stable economic growth, a recent global comparison from the International Monetary Fund concluded, and see far shorter economic expansions.
They “are more vulnerable to both financial crises and political instability” and, if hit by external shocks, “often stumble into gridlock rather than agree to tough policies needed to keep growth alive,” the report found. As a result, American income trends suggest that current economic expansions “could last just one-third as long as in the late 1960s.”

How Inequality Hurts the Economy - Businessweek

All sorts of correlation not equaling causation happening here.

Be more specific.

If you can...

He cant and if you look at the time of his post he didnt read it either

 

[Spiderman]

Thats the funny thing about the truth. The truth dont give a dam if you "buy it" or not.

What pressure do people have to buy what they can't afford?

Who is applying that pressure?

It's a cop out that is the truth.

Or is the truth simply that people are too stupid to follow a simple budget?

Do you want the answers or not? Its in the OP and I included links

Yeah the "economics arms race"

You can't even see that is just utter bullshit can you?

No one is forcing people to buy shit they can't afford.

There are no dire consequences for not spending money on shit you can't afford.

So tell me who is forcing people to spend more than they can afford?

The only entity that forces people to buy stuff is the government.

I am forced to buy health insurance. I am forced to buy auto insurance.

So tell me what is the rich guy on the hill forcing me to buy and if I don't buy it what are the penalties?

 

[Edgetho]

As a Public Service to the stupid among us (dimocraps, who will refuse to read this) I offer some words of wisdom from my favorite Milblog and its brilliant founder....

Ace of Spades HQ

If you want to understand the dimocrap elites, and those idiot dimocraps who perceive themselves as elite (most of them) You have GOT to read this....

Major snippage. Go to the link for the rest of it. You might have to scroll for it.

The Left Talks a Great Deal About the Evils of Income Inequality, But Is Very Happy to Perpetuate a Regime of Social Inequality
—Ace



<<snip>>It is weaponized for politics. Sarah Palin quite plainly is not dismissed by the New Class merely because they disagree with her beliefs. Their disdain has a nasty personal edge to it -- they disapprove of her and the class she hails from. The New Class is not to content itself with disparaging Palin. They actively wish to include millions of Americans they've never even met inside the broad circle of their angry, arrogant disdain. The fact that they are not just attacking Palin but attacking millions of other people is not a bug, but a feature. The additional casualties of the attack are not regrettable collateral damage, but rather bonus damage to be celebrated.

I've been interested in how class distinctions form and mutate for a while now. It's not true that class arises only from income levels, of course. That never has been true. I'm not even sure that class distinctions arise chiefly from income disparity. They instead arise from educational and social disparity -- with class-conscious people exaggerating the differences between themselves (the elevated) and the rest (the base) in order to supply themselves with an argument for the proposition most important to the class-conscious: I'm Better. (And of course the corollary: They're Worse.)

Our current class distinctions are similar to those in Victorian England:

[A] Bank of England clerk would be a member of the middle/professional class, despite the fact that what he did all day was hand-write numbers into ledgers and do simple arithmetic and some filing work and the like, whereas, say, a carpenter actually did real thinking, real planning, at his job, with elements of real creativity.
And yet it was the Bank of England clerk who was considered a "mind" worker and the carpenter merely a hand-laborer.

Now, of course, there were plenty of middle/professional class people who did work with their minds -- doctors, theologians, professionals, lawyers, nurses and so forth -- but there were an awful lot of such people who didn't, or only did to a trivial degree, and of course there were plenty of working-class people who didn't work much with their minds at all. Low-level factory workers, ditch-diggers, etc.

So there was an element of truth to the mind/hand distinction -- but it was a relatively small element of truth, more disproven by contrary example than confirmed by rule.

And even in terms of wages -- this I thought was interesting -- there really was no distinction between them, except that the working class person usually made a little more money than the average member of the middle/professional class. Sure, what we'd call true professionals made more, but not a huge amount more, and, at any rate, there were comparatively few of those compared to the large number of clerks and such.

Yet, despite there being no genuine distinction between them to demonstrate that one class was "higher" than the other, the distinction nevertheless took root, and middle class girls would marry middle class boys and working class girls working class boys. Which is the real test of a true, defined class -- do they mix enough to intermarry? If not, they're pretty well defined classes. Which is sort of one of the criteria used to determine whether one animal is merely a different variety than another or a whole different species. Can they mate?

At any rate, that distinction has obviously persisted, even in America, with the ingrained sort of idea that a low-level associate producer making crap money and rote choices on an MSNBC daytime talk show was somehow "above" someone making real command decisions in his occupation, like a plumber. And this sort of idea is very important to that low-level producer at MSNBC, because by thinking this way, he puts himself in the league of doctors and engineers.

 

[ClosedCaption]

What pressure do people have to buy what they can't afford?

Who is applying that pressure?

It's a cop out that is the truth.

Or is the truth simply that people are too stupid to follow a simple budget?

Do you want the answers or not? Its in the OP and I included links

Yeah the "economics arms race"

You can't even see that is just utter bullshit can you?

No one is forcing people to buy shit they can't afford.

There are no dire consequences for not spending money on shit you can't afford.

So tell me who is forcing people to spend more than they can afford?

The only entity that forces people to buy stuff is the government.

I am forced to buy health insurance. I am forced to buy auto insurance.

So tell me what is the rich guy on the hill forcing me to buy and if I don't buy it what are the penalties?

No I cant see its utter bullshit especially when you refuse to rebut anything and just fire off questions that are addressed in the OP.

Teach thyself dam bitch

 

[Uncensored2008]

lol

Never held a job, huh?

 

[Uncensored2008]

No I cant see its utter bullshit especially when you refuse to rebut anything and just fire off questions that are addressed in the OP.

Teach thyself dam bitch

Damn skanky, damn........


What do you get if you cross a democrat with a turnip?

A retarded turnip....

 

[Edgetho]

No I cant see its utter bullshit especially when you refuse to rebut anything and just fire off questions that are addressed in the OP.

Teach thyself dam bitch

Damn skanky, damn........


What do you get if you cross a democrat with a turnip?

A retarded turnip....

BWAH!!

 

[Indeependent]

So what happens when millions have to live within their "budget"?
They move en masse to states where they still can't afford their rent, utilities, auto insurance, etc...
They vote in Representatives who then suck that capital off from those who can either just about make it or those who live very well.
So the solution is to end all legislation that enables this siphoning off.
Then what happens?
Soylent Green?
Who knows until it happens.

 

[The Rabbi]

So what happens when millions have to live within their "budget"?
They move en masse to states where they still can't afford their rent, utilities, auto insurance, etc...
They vote in Representatives who then suck that capital off from those who can either just about make it or those who live very well.
So the solution is to end all legislation that enables this siphoning off.
Then what happens?
Soylent Green?
Who knows until it happens.

WTF?
Why would someone move somewhere he couldn't afford to live? Are you freebasing?

 

[ClosedCaption]

No I cant see its utter bullshit especially when you refuse to rebut anything and just fire off questions that are addressed in the OP.

Teach thyself dam bitch

Damn skanky, damn........


What do you get if you cross a democrat with a turnip?

A retarded turnip....

Swing and a miss. But you tried tho

 

[Bombur]

I wouldn't put all the blame at Reagan's feet. Clinton did his fair share too.

Agree 100%. Clinton sold us a false bill of goods with NAFTA

NAFTA has been ok. Trade with China has been far more imbalanced.

 

[Bombur]

I doubt your claim is true. Like most of what you post, I'm sure you simply made it up.

CEO's demand what they think they can get. They generally base it on performance milestones.

For those who have never worked outside of McDonalds or a government make-work job, what this means is that when a new CEO comes in, his pay is about zero. He is compensated (or she, as the case may be) based on meeting performance goals. If sales meet X with a margin of Y, then pay is Z.

So typically, a CEO will boast that he can deliver certain levels of performance, and the compensation package is structured to reflect those claims. Fail to perform, and get nothing.

lol

Brilliant retort son. He's correct.

First off he just made crap up.

Secondly he didn't even contradict what I said which is that the pay they are demanding is not tied to consumption buy their competitive nature with other CEOs.

Stop being stupid and I might respond with more than a "lol"

 

[ClosedCaption]

lol

Brilliant retort son. He's correct.

First off he just made crap up.

Secondly he didn't even contradict what I said which is that the pay they are demanding is not tied to consumption buy their competitive nature with other CEOs.

Stop being stupid and I might respond with more than a "lol"

Dont mind the T he's like a cheerleader. He doesnt understand what he's watching but he'll cheer anyway.



...and he wears a skirt

 

[Uncensored2008]

First off he just made crap up.

Really?

You base that on your wealth of experience in the executive world?

Secondly he didn't even contradict what I said which is that the pay they are demanding is not tied to consumption buy their competitive nature with other CEOs.

Stop being stupid and I might respond with more than a "lol"

What I pointed out that you are yet another ignorant fool who attacks what you don't understand.

I find a great deal to fault in much executive compensation, mostly that goals are fraudulent and often fail to reflect the contributions of the top executives.

However, this criticism is based on the fact that I previously explained to you, about how the vast majority of executive pay is determined.