Per capita income in the US is $53,750. That's $215,000 a year for every family of 4.

[pampango]

The reason our middle class is poorer than theirs - our income inequality (red line) has skyrocketed since the mid-1960's. Canada and Europe have per capita income lower than ours but with much better income distributions their middle classes are much better off. FDR would realize that we need to tax our rich, regulate their corporations, support our unions and provide an adequate safety net. IOW do what he did. The answer is not beyond our borders.

[PSPS]

1. Um, that's not "per capita." It's per household.

So your "family of four" would still have a total median income of $50K.

[PeaceNikki]

2. Your toddler and tween aren't contributing members of your household!??!

Freeloaders!

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. US gdp per capita is $53,000 nt

it is not allocated effectively.

[PSPS]

7. The actual US per capita income in past 12 months (in 2013 dollars) 2009-2013 = $28,155

The OP is confusing "per capita" with "per household." Even the graphs on the OP don't use the term "per capita."

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. According to the world bank, us gdp per capita is $53,041.98

$16.77t /318.9m

https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&idim=country:USA:CAN:GBR&hl=en&dl=en

[kelly1mm]

18. You do understand that GDP does not = income, right? GDP is the total value of goods and

services produced. Included in that total is the costs of production which is not income but rather cost of goods sold.

[Major Nikon]

24. GDP most certainly can be derived from income

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product#Income_approach

[whatthehey]

27. which is GDP (I) or GDI. The standard GDP used here is GDP where P=product

Sell a Boeing 747 and the total amount, including materials, labor, overhead = GDP. Only the profit would go into GDI.

There is absolutely not $53k each of income to share around, only $53k each of economic output produced.

[Major Nikon]

30. Which is nothing more than deriving GDP by income

[joshcryer]

17. The OP is obviously arguing for redistribution.

[pampango]

6. No, it's per capita. The link is below: $53,750 per person.

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=per+capita+income+united+states

National income is $17 trillion. Divide that by our population, 320 million, and you get the above per capita income.

[PSPS]

8. Don't be silly

By that "logic," one would become a billionaire if Bill Gates stepped into their elevator.

And your link merely shows the per-capita allocation of GDP, and that's not income.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. If the wealth of the elevator occupants were spread equitably, they'd all be billionaires.

Which of course is the OP's point.

[pampango]

12. Are you implying that the presence of billionaires in our country is not relevant to the health of

the middle class. My point is that if FDR were around the taxes on the "rich guy in the elevator" would fund a safety net, cheap education like in the GI bill and a strong infrastructure, among other things. That's what happens to "rich guys in elevators" in progressive countries. The presence of an untaxed "rich guys in the elevator" (and the boardroom, the stock exchange, etc.) is the reason that or income inequality is so screwed up and our middle class struggles.

[Drahthaardogs]

37. That's the point the OP is making.

The income is skewing the statistics because the super rich have it all and the rest of us fight over the scraps.

[AgingAmerican]

11. 99% of all new income goes to 1%

...of the population.

[pampango]

13. Great point. And since it is not taxed significantly the inequality index just gets worse and worse.

[PowerToThePeople]

4. that would be the working wage in a Socialist USA.

[hifiguy]

5. And look where the GINI index starts skyrocketing.

The year Raygun was inaugurated. What a surprise.

[Fumesucker]

33. It was the lowest in 1968-69 or thereabouts..

Look at what was happening in 1968-1969.

[seveneyes]

35. Raygun was inaugurated in 1991 ?

The line goes nearly vertical around 1991 - 1992. WTF?

[Exilednight]

14. Take out the top 1% and then tell me what it is. N/t

[pampango]

15. If that income is redistributed, per capita stays the same; income equality improves greatly. n/t

[whatthehey]

25. medians don't work like tbat

List everybody highest to lowest, median is in the middle.

Mean or mathematical average is the one skewed by outliers. Medians are used precisely to avoid that.

[Exilednight]

29. i would argue that the top 1% are

Last edited Sat May 2, 2015, 07:47 PM - Edit history (1)

outliers and drastically skew the results. Although the top 1% has much control over over our nations wealth, they don't necessarilly own it. Donald Trump might command billions, but not have a penny to his own name.

[1939]

46. Log-Normal (Pareto) Distribution is normally the distribution shown by things like income and wealth

As you move from zero income to infinite income (left to right) using a log-normal curve, you first reach the peak of the curve (the mode) which is the most likely income for the population. Further to the right, you reach the median which is the fifty-fifty point (half have incomes lower and half have incomes higher). Even further to the right, you reach the mean (average) income which is driven by the extreme values in the tail of the curve reaching out to infinity (CEOs, rock stars, sports stars).

[Starry Messenger]

16. That isn't news.

Knowing where the $ is isn't the problem. The problem is that the mechanisms to redistribute keep getting the legs kicked out from under them, like union-busting, which evidently liberals have no problem with now. So, tell us how this is going to happen.

[joshcryer]

20. Progressive taxing would be a start.

[Starry Messenger]

21. "The problem is that the mechanisms to redistribute keep getting the legs kicked out from

under them"---that would include progressive taxation. We used to have that, as noted by the OP. What is he proposing?

[joshcryer]

34. It's in the OP.

You need to get back Congress of course but it's popular enough to be a democratic party plank. It's not that bad.

[Starry Messenger]

38. Oy vey!

Thick.

[BainsBane]

19. The median income for a family of four is about $47k

Not over $200k. That would be an extremely fortunate family, upper-middle class. That is not how most Americans live. People who make that much are in the upper percentile, perhaps upper 5th to 10th? Somewhere around there.
Income for the 1 percent begins in the $400 Ks.

[pampango]

28. Your figure for the median family income is correct and an indication of how bad income inequality

actually is.

Perfect income equality would mean that every family of 4 in the US had an income of $200,000. The fact that half of American households make due with $47,000 or less and tiny percent make an obscene amount shows exactly how bad things are here. Perfect income equality may be unachievable but we can improve greatly on what we are doing.

[Fred Sanders]

22. GDP is not income. Per capita means per person, so per family is not per capita. Income is not GDP.

See post 19.

[catrose]

23. Where do I report that I didn't get my share? eom

[1939]

26. There is a story....

probably apocryphal, where Andrew Carnegie (or one of the robber barons) was approached by a guy who berated him for being rich while so many were poor. Carnegie took out a notebook and did some figuring (dividing his net worth by the world population) took 27 cents out of his pocket and handed it to the guy saying, "here's your share".

[PowerToThePeople]

32. enjoy your stay

[hobbit709]

31. I'm not even close at $12,000

[Dragonfli]

36. That is the problem, you are far from unique, outside of the nice 'burbs, you are typical

I am actually much lower than that, the inevitable outcome of this fact is that I will eventually become homeless, likely sooner than later.

What I hear from DC is lots of talk about how they want to help the "middle class" (politician speak for 100k and up crowd) You and I are completely invisible to them, for instance, none of us were even in Hillary's ever so "inclusive" coming out video. What is even sadder is that they are not doing anything for even the middle class they are fond of speaking of, those comfortable suburbanites with multiple SUV's are on the decline, soon to be joining us.

This is one of the reasons I like Bernie Sanders, he talks about more than just the middle class, I have followed him for some time now and he talks about, gasp, poverty and the working poor and disabled as well, and unlike most, he seams to really mean it.

When he says he supports the middle class, he means he supports reversing their decline and supports folks like us joining them, he is a strange animal indeed, one not indigenous to DC.

[Aerows]

39. Did child labor laws get lifted?

Because a family of four usually includes two kids.

[pampango]

40. Not that I am aware of. Which would imply that with perfect income equality each parent would earn

over $100,000 a year. That is an indication of how much total income there is in this country.

The reality is, of course, that income is divided up so unequally in the US that the idea of an average family with 2 working parents making $200,000 seems like a joke even to progressives. But when you divide total national income by the total population, then adjust for a mythical 4-person family with two working parents and two non-working kids, that "joke" nunber is what you get. The fact that is seems like a statistical impossibility shows the success of the 1% in hiding just how skewed our income inequality actually is.

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. A typical family has less than 2 children, though

The period in life when there are children in a home is a relatively short one - under a third of someone's lifetime. Average up how many children live in a family at any one time, and it's well below 2. The average people per household is 2.63.

No-one would expect a family with children to have a full income for each of them.

[pampango]

43. You will get the same figure is you take total national income and divide by the number of workers

(obviously a smaller number than the total population).

The per worker figure - $126,000 ($17 trillion divided by 135 million workers) - would yield similar family income figures. With perfect income equality each worker would earn $126,000 a year and would not count children or non-workers. While we will never achieve perfect income equality, seeing how far $126,000 is from reality is a stark indication of how bad our inequality is.

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. But you don't expect all national income to go only to workers

There are such things as pensions, for instance. A considerable proportion of the US is retired. Even if everyone in employment was given the exact same wage, you wouldn't expect to take the GDP and divide it up between the employees and no-one else.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. Maybe this is a better graph for this discussion: wage share

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_share



('EU15'=the western EU members before the expansion to former Warsaw Pact countries, 'EA12'=Eurozone Area 12, I think, 'FRG'=(the old) Federal Republic of Germany, I think)

You can see there's been a general decrease in the major western economies since about 1980, and the USA had managed to be at about 67.5% in 2000 - 2nd best of the figures given, after Japan - to the lowest now - about 63%.

[1939]

45. Range

For the "western world" plus Japan, the current range is 63% to 67%. Not counting Japan, the high was 74% (FRG 1975) and the low was 62% (FRG 2007)