Cecilie1200
Diamond Member
I got this story from Thomas Sowell's latest column, and am including a link to the CBO study he cites.
Perhaps the biggest lie of this election year, and the one likely to be repeated the most often, is that the income of the rich is going up, while other peoples incomes are going down. If you listen to Barack Obama, you are bound to hear this lie repeatedly.
But the governments own Congressional Budget Office has just published a report whose statistics flatly contradict this claim. The CBO report shows that, while the average household income fell 12 percent between 2007 and 2009, the average for the lower four-fifths fell by 5 percent or less, while the average income for households in the top fifth fell 18 percent. For households in the top one percent that seems to fascinate so many people, income fell by 36 percent in those same years.
Why are these data so different from other data that are widely cited, showing the top brackets improving their positions more so than anyone else?
The answer is that the data cited by the Congressional Budget Office are based on Internal Revenue Service statistics for specific individuals and specific households over time. The IRS can follow individuals and households because it can identify the same people over time from their Social Security numbers.
Most other data, including census data, are based on compiling statistics in a succession of time periods, without the ability to tell if the actual people in each income bracket are the same from one time period to the next. The turnover of people is substantial in all brackets and is huge in the top one percent. Most people in that bracket are there for only one year in a decade.
Thomas Sowell: Big lies in politics - Conservative News
CBO | The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2008 and 2009
Why do I think he's right, and we won't be hearing Obama present these facts?
Perhaps the biggest lie of this election year, and the one likely to be repeated the most often, is that the income of the rich is going up, while other peoples incomes are going down. If you listen to Barack Obama, you are bound to hear this lie repeatedly.
But the governments own Congressional Budget Office has just published a report whose statistics flatly contradict this claim. The CBO report shows that, while the average household income fell 12 percent between 2007 and 2009, the average for the lower four-fifths fell by 5 percent or less, while the average income for households in the top fifth fell 18 percent. For households in the top one percent that seems to fascinate so many people, income fell by 36 percent in those same years.
Why are these data so different from other data that are widely cited, showing the top brackets improving their positions more so than anyone else?
The answer is that the data cited by the Congressional Budget Office are based on Internal Revenue Service statistics for specific individuals and specific households over time. The IRS can follow individuals and households because it can identify the same people over time from their Social Security numbers.
Most other data, including census data, are based on compiling statistics in a succession of time periods, without the ability to tell if the actual people in each income bracket are the same from one time period to the next. The turnover of people is substantial in all brackets and is huge in the top one percent. Most people in that bracket are there for only one year in a decade.
Thomas Sowell: Big lies in politics - Conservative News
CBO | The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2008 and 2009
Why do I think he's right, and we won't be hearing Obama present these facts?