How low should the Average American Income be?

[HughBeaumont]

With this board's apparent and sudden accepting of fiscal conservativism and Classical Liberalism, the meme of the month is that we're not really the progressives we say we are unless we embrace job offshoring; unless we accept that automation is going to gobble up jobs and leave millions with no means of earning money. We should accept the coming worthlessness of our degrees; we're nothing but a dime-a-dozen in the world's eyes. We're "not needed" to be part of a consumer economy (search me how one makes THAT leap, but . . . OK . . . ). We'll, plain and simple, no matter what degree of education we have and no matter how much money it takes to go to college, have to "work even HARDER" and for less money if you want to be a true team player.

Face Facts, Kids. Average is Over.

And in getting on board with bringing our standards DOWN (rather than, perish the thought, bring THEIR standards to ours . . . but then our wealthy couldn't buy that 13th home and why do you hate Uncle Sam), American workers should embrace pay cuts, because if there's ONE thing that's going to help Capitalism achieve the purity we're shooting for, it's to take money AWAY from folks who have to spend every last dime of it!

If we're going to have a worldwide Capitalist orgy, Americans are going to have to bite some bitter pills and have to accept being POORER . . . having our wages and salaries CUT. Because you all can afford to have salary cuts, right? COME on, you so-called progressives!! SACRIFICE your salaries for the greater good, or you're just like Donald Trump!!

(Never mind that's a bunch of neolib horseshit, as this country's wages haven't experienced a significant overall inflation-adjusted rise since 1979 and there's not much evidence that offshoring jobs to Asia has indeed led to higher paying positions in America, a canard that the Greg Mankiws, Marc Andreessens and Steve Forbes of the world like to toss around.)

Sooooooooooooo, how low should the Average American Income go? I know I asked this before and got an answer in the form of a question.

Name that bottom right now.

$18,000/year? ASTOUNDING.

Where would you live? How would you educate yourself? How would you drive yourself around? How would you pay bills? What if you had kids? How would they eat? Would they dumpster dive or steal from orchards?

Hey, let's go even lower, since apparently, America's homeless are the world's Larry Ellisons . . .

How about $5000 a year per family?

What bridge would they be living under? That sure wouldn't afford them anything but a used van to camp in. Would their breakfasts be insects or varieties of mosses or dandelions?

How low should we go? What would satisfy the board's pure Capitalism cheerleaders?

[hobbit709]

1. us serfs should take the leavings and crumbs from the tables of our betters and be GRATEFUL!

[Javaman]

2. and not having to fight the dogs for them. nt

[HughBeaumont]

3. Crumbs: It's STILL Asking Too Much, You Quasi-Republican Peegs!

[JaneyVee]

4. So much hyperbole and pearl clutching....

First of all, without free trade, the poor would be even poorer as basic consumer goods would skyrocket. Second, who is arguing for lower wages (besides Republicans?).

[hobbit709]

6. so much unwillingness to face facts.

[HughBeaumont]

12. Necessity costs are what's killing the middle/working/poor, not the price of tchotchkes.

Are we now arguing that a person who can afford a cheap smartphone is better off even if they've been displaced with nothing to replace that income?

There's plenty of assertion on DU that American workers are greedy and ask too much. Lower wages are the only way an American worker is supposed to compete with worldwide workers. Wages are never going to go UP for anyone on any continent to the standards of American purchasing power in zero-sum, winner-take-everything Globalization. I don't know, are wealthy people going to be benevolent if we get rid of their taxes and increase their wealth more? When does it all "trickle down"?

You know who makes these kinds of inane arguments, right?

[JaneyVee]

35. The only people against raising wages are Republicans....

[HughBeaumont]

48. Boy, could I win money off of you . . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027728050

[Ishoutandscream2]

109. Good God

Speechless...

[HughBeaumont]

116. I hear you. It leaves you dumbfounded.

It's looking more and more like discussionist. It's like I'm arguing with their know-nothing an-caps named after ammo. On a site called DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND.

[font size="3"]What the fuck is Democratic about cheerleading job loss and salary depletion?? What the fuck is Democratic about blatant red-baiting? How is parroting Republican economic talking points even one atom speck Democratic?? COME on!![/font]

[KPN]

58. Lol. Raising wages by how much? To what level?

Neolib Dems are right in there too.

[AllyCat]

39. Those saying that $12/hour is a fine minimum wage?

That is a low wage. It pulls all the rest of us working for union wages down to that. We need to move UP.

[JaneyVee]

43. Umm no.

If anything it makes union membership more appealing. If people could get paid union wages without a union, union membership would plummet.

[AllyCat]

44. Unions are not about just the wages. We work for safe working conditions

and safer facilities that protect consumer and worker alike. So by your logic, we should hope for lower wages so that union membership will increase? In what states? All the ones with no GOP/TEA Guv?

[scscholar]

81. This. Not raising minimum wages encourages union membership...

which is why many Republicans want to raise it. They hate unions more than they hate their own money.

[fleabiscuit]

68. The minimum wage doesn't move union wages up or down. There's no connection. It's made up. eom

[Rex]

55. Free trade means no regulations and is the reason many people are taken advantage of and poor.

Fair trade is what we all need, free trade is a libertarian day dream.

[Igel]

61. Free trade means no regulations?

Sorry. But if you want to have fully open trade with other countries all that's required is having the *same* regulations.

That often means that a regulation gets removed. But it also often means that you add regulations. Take GMO grains. One reason some farmers have stopped using GMO seeds is because of not-quite-free trade agreements that favor the other country's regs. They ban GMO, it means farmers in the US have to try to get them banned locally because of genetic contamination. A free trade agreement might say, "GMO is okay," and cause the other country to open up its market. Or it might let the difference stand and remain a matter of disagreement. Or it might say the US has to ban GMO foods. The first two are more likely, IMO, but in other matters the regulations get extended.

[Rex]

63. Well then you support fair trade, good to know.

[fleabiscuit]

69. That's a vacuous response. eom

[Rex]

70. Yes your response is most vacuous.

The poster agrees with me, they said so. Does that give you a sadz?

[fleabiscuit]

75. Nope, reading it wrong gives me a sad. Sorry. Although finding I read it wrong gives me a happy. :-)

[Rex]

76. Excellent.

Happys are of great value, sadz are bad currency.

[Silver_Witch]

56. Read DU posts re same! N/T

[SoLeftIAmRight]

57. pearl clutching

shows a state of mind

[KPN]

65. You ignore the past 25 years of free trade --

one of the primary causes of lost jobs and manufacturing decline in the USA -- and the basic principle of economics (Supply of Jobs < Demand for Jobs = Lower Cost of Labor).

This isn't hyperbole. Why do you think so many people supported Bernie in the primary? The people are growing restless. Ignore sat your own risk.

[fleabiscuit]

72. What have the Romans done for us?

That totally ignores small things like available labor, taxes, availability of goods and resources, environmental regulations, having a market, shipping... make your own sandwich...

[KPN]

103. Those are all cost of production factors

which corporations seek to minimize and have done so by off-shoring and relocation production facilities and headquarters overseas. The labor availability issue is and always has been phony. For the most part, the only labor in short supply was labor willing to work for poverty level wages. Deregulation and free trade agreements were first and foremost a backdoor means to cheap labor and tax avoidance.

If the system (current economic model) has worked for you and you continue to favor it as is, congratulation, you are officially an elite Neoliberal and part of the problem.

[fleabiscuit]

127. No need to end in a non sequitur.

However, if the cost of labor were exactly the same, or hell, even higher in another country but a company 'there' does not have to compete equally on "taxes, availability of goods and resources, environmental regulations, having a market, shipping" etc, who has the competitive advantage?

Now throw in a government unwilling to "invest" in infrastructure, renewable energy, education, retirement security, health care and on and on...

Trying to get level playing fields world wide is just one important correction course. We are capable of doing more than one thing at a time.

[Drahthaardogs]

110. You mean the free trade

that sent textiles from the Bronx to Taiwan? Steel mills from Pittsburgh to China? Engineering support to India? Carnation farms from Colorado to Argentina? Vegetable growing from California to Mexico?

I for one reject the Walmart economy. Don't you see what Free Trade has done? You now work at Walmart and the only place you can afford to shop at is Walmart...

[HughBeaumont]

117. Rust Belt Denizen here!

I've seen with my own eyes what it's done. I've experienced in my family and with other members of my family what it's done.

Some of my family STILL haven't "bounced back".

Laissez-Fail can eat a dick.

[Scuba]

5. The average American wage doesn't need to be low at all. Just pay the 1% enough to pull it up.

[HughBeaumont]

10. The 1% could buy everything FOR us.

That would sort of shift the burden of the middle/working/poor to be good consumers.

It would also make the 1% feel less guilty when they replace us all with automatons.

[fleabiscuit]

78. Ugh. If a job is repetitive, dangerous, or just plain icky, jobs will be replaced by robots.

[HughBeaumont]

18. How about doing something beyond ruining the economy?

Peter Schiff is an asshole and pretty much always wrong, BTW.

[mountain grammy]

7. K & R

[Odin2005]

8. There is no going back to some idealized vision of the 50s.

The answer to global capitalism is a global labor movement that works for raising the standard of living for everyone and fight to build global socialism, the world has become too small and connected for economic nationalism.

[hobbit709]

9. And you think giving the corporations more power will help everyone?

[Odin2005]

11. Who said anything about giving corporations more power?

[seabeckind]

21. Who is in charge of this global capitalism?

[JaneyVee]

36. We all are. You buy products made overseas all the time.

[AllyCat]

41. Because there is little else to buy.

The majority of the stuff we need and want is made overseas with cheap labor.

[Igel]

67. Needs are a tough call.

But wants? Want less. Pay for your politics.

I wanted a kitchen appliance a number of years back. I had a choice as to where the one I bought was made. I chose to pay $80 or $90 more to support one country's economy over another. It was a want.


Even food is a "need" consisting of a lot of wants. I like tomatoes. The ones I buy are mostly grown in Mexico. I can either shop around to find US grown ones or do without them. I don't "need" tomatoes. I've tried growing them where I live, and how others manage it I don't know--I find the growing season short and the bug population large.

Having a home-grown manufacturing or agricultural industry is often emergent. A lot of people make small decisions that add up to a large decision. If I find US-made t-shirts and buy them, it goes to that company's bottom line. If their sales increase they may ask customers why they prefer that brand? "US made." It will hurt sales of their competitors, who will ask why sales are down and get the answer, "Not US made." Production will shift. But since most people want a lot of inexpensive stuff made abroad and have consistently voted that way with their $ for more than 40 years, we got what we showed we wanted. We say one thing and do another. The "Buy American" campaigns we used to have failed because US-made was a lower-priority want than getting stuff.

The brand computer I buy (those few times I buy a computer) is as US-sourced and US-assembled as I can find. It's struggling because it's a bit more expensive for what you get. Most of my friends think this is foolish. Then they complain about US manufacturing jobs going overseas where costs are less because they pay workers less. I point out the discrepancy and they say that the US brand is more expensive, why pay more? "Why does US-made cost more?" And the answer is "US companies are greedy." Price for them is apparently unrelated to cost. But if you ask why overseas-made stuff costs less, they'll say it's because costs are lower, not that foreign companies are less greedy. Resolve that bit of double-think and you resolve a lot of the problem--either we buy US-made or we stop complaining about predictable and completely rational outcomes resulting from rational choices.

[seabeckind]

49. When do you think you'll get around to fixing that airbag problem?

Doesn't affect me right now but I may want to buy a car sometime in the future.

I'm not looking forward to having a hand grenade in my lap.

BTW, I think that is a pretty specious argument. But that's just me.

Kinda like I have to accept fracking fluid in my well cause I like to keep warm. As if lil ole me has any choice about what some multi-gazillion dollar megacorp does.

Yeah, my turning down the thermostat will have them begging to get my business back.

[HughBeaumont]

13. Y'all have this idealized vision where workers have a say in the outcome of American progress.

This isn't Germany we live in.

And our arguments hardly boil down to economic nationalism. WTF, that's downright insulting. I want workers to have more of a say in how they get paid, what benefits they'll receive, a sensible retirement plan, etc.

Corporations have too much influence over the way this country (public AND private) is run, and that has GOT to stop. Life has GOT to get fairer or we're not going to have much of one.

[madokie]

20. Hence the reason for Unions

thought collective bargaining can we increase the lot for us serfs

The rich aren't going to do it for us.

Like my dad always use to say you have to wag your own tail ain't no one going to wag it for you. That fits here too, btw.

[HughBeaumont]

25. Well, when you have governors doing the work of the Kochs . . .

. . . and eliminating collective bargaining as your FIRST priority in office, it's not a great start.

Union membership has dwindled and that's sad. Americans have been hoodwinked into believing they aren't necessary - hence, the wage stagnation in the charts above.

Try starting a union in a white collar institution. These people are about as receptive to a progressive message as Opera fans are to loud cellphones during La Boheme.

[seabeckind]

26. I would like to have corporate charters changed.

I believe that workers make a non-monetary investment in a company and deserve to have that investment recognized.

Even more than some guy who comes in after the company is thriving on all that innovation and productivity and plops a few million on the table.

I would very much question the ulterior motives of that guy.

Change the charter so that the board is not solely answerable to shareholders. Put a couple "except where"s on that goal.

[HughBeaumont]

34. Should be easy to change a corporate charter in that regard.

. . . since answering to the shareholders is a corporate CHOICE and not a law that everyone thinks it is.

Agreed on all other points.

[tk2kewl]

28. so lets put support for global labor organization in the platform

instead of support for pro-corporate/pro-banking/pro-investor trade deals

[Go Vols]

106. +1

[fasttense]

42. I think if the US wanted to we could turn around globalism in a heartbeat.

Look what we did in WWII and sending a man to the moon. We could turnaround global climate change too if we set our minds to it. The problem is capitalism has given all the wealth and power to a handful of F**king crazy men and women. You have to be crazy to purposely plan the deconstruction of the wealth and destroy the welfare of nations and the planet.

Until We The People take back that wealth and power from the greedy psychotics it will never change. It's just like feudalism and slavery, they had to go. We have to evolve out of capitalism and take back what is ours.

[HughBeaumont]

15. Is this fucking serious?

Take your Republican/Libertarian horseshit elsewhere. Fuck the RNC and fuck TRUMP. Anyone who thinks that fucking knob would be a great president is brain-damaged.

[Gormy Cuss]

31. And speaking of BS

Trump is the LAST person who would "Make America Great Again" for anyone but himself.

I feel sorry for racists who think incompetence at Burger King is a reason to vote for the Cheetos-faced, muskrat toupeed bastard.

[HughBeaumont]

33. "Communists" . . . .

. . . when you're ready to converse like an adult, call us.

[TBA]

19. Why don't you ask all of the working people he ripped off?

Contractors who were never paid for work done on his many failed properties. Apparently he thinks minimum wage should be zero. I suggest you spend some quality time with factcheck.org, snopes and politifact.

Peace.

[seabeckind]

17. Guys on the lido deck don't like this attitude.

Now get back to yer shovel and quit yer complainin.

$18k a year works out to $72k if you and the missus weren't so lazy. (4 jobs @ $18,000 = $72,000)

Get yer lazy mom to watch the kids and that eliminates overhead. Hel, if they're old enough, get them to bring in a few bucks.

In no time at all you'll be living the good life and enjoying life.

Some people have no sense of personal responsibility.

[HughBeaumont]

22. The Lido Deck . . . and I just watched Love Boat recently!!

We should all aspire to a four-family household. Or is a ROOF now too much to aspire for in concession-America??

[Bettie]

97. What? A box isn't good enough for you?

Wanting a home with a solid roof? How dare you!

[HughBeaumont]

98. Cricket and Aphid sauce wraps are amazing.

Even further divine with trap-smashed mouse!

[Bettie]

100. If you can manage to steal them

from someone's lawn, dandelion salad goes well with that, well, dandelions and grass clippings, but if you get caught, you'll be arrested for stealing them.

But, I think they feed you in jail, so win/win!

[passiveporcupine]

113. I was just reading yesterday that thistles are very edible

You just have to watch out for those spines.

[Downwinder]

23. Congressional salaries should be tied to

Average American Income.

[seabeckind]

24. It isn't the salary, it's the perks.

And the source of the perks.

When you get a guy who starts out with $500k in assets, takes a $150k (or whatever it is) job and then 6 years later has $10 million,

I would suspect he has another source of income.

Don't worry about it. I have a suspicious nature.

[Downwinder]

27. That is another matter.

Like the Southern Sheriff. It is not whether he is going to steal, it is how much.

[seabeckind]

50. I pretty much think it's the most important matter.

It's who that guy is answerable to.

We, who pay his salary, or the guy who gives him a ride in his Gulfstream.

Which brings up.... the point about writing off the personal Gulfstream on the corporate tax sheet. As well as the trip.

Some poor drudge working a desk at a gov't job has to report a lunch thrown by a civilian, meanwhile

[passiveporcupine]

111. You mean median, but still Too high

I don't know what "average" American family income is, but median is $53,657 for 2015. That is family income, not individual income (includes a working spouse too). Average would be a lot higher because it's skewed by the 1%ers.

I think it should be based on family median income, minus what their spouses make and that is all they get. I like it!

$53.6K would seem like a million bucks to many people (like me).

[malthaussen]

37. According to whom?

For some of the ruling class, $0 a year would be a good start, although best would be workers paying for the privilege to work, as in the Monty Python Four Yorkshiremen sketch.

Aside from that, it's any arbitrary figure you choose. What matters is not a number, but what can be done with the income.

-- Mal

[HughBeaumont]

40. Capitalism can't work with NO income.

Of course, try telling the people who run us this plain and simple fact.

And paying our massahs for the privilege of working for them . . . . miiiiiiiiiiiiight not be just satire there . . . .

[malthaussen]

46. Sure, but who says the ruling class are capitalists?

Capitalism is the religion of choice for the ruling class because it gets them what they want with the greatest efficiency, but I wonder how many true believers there really are (more than zero, agreed). If a system could be created that would allow them to grind the faces of the masses even more, they'd be all over it. I believe that schadenfreude is a much greater motivator than most people think.

In the absence of such a system, though, the next-best choice would be to relocate markets to areas where more profit can be extracted because labor costs are cheaper. As for the former markets, they can atrophy because the consumer goods can be marketed elsewhere. This has an extra benefit in terms of schadenfreude, because now one can have the pleasure of seeing the uppity lower classes squirm as their means are taken from them.

If you find this far-fetched, just think of how angry it makes the mouthpieces of the ruling class that 97% of Americans have refrigerators and telephones.

-- Mal

[IronLionZion]

38. So what's the solution?

There are those who would like us to blame immigrants and poor people in other countries.

Others tell us to blame unions for closing down the factories.

Someone told me that cheap imports help poor people to buy them and helps the poor people who make them.

Some feel that we are just too ungrateful for the job creators to trickle down all over us. They won't trickle it down until we grovel.

Meanwhile hedge funds are making billions of dollars and no one seems to know what exactly they build or what service they provide or how they add value to our economy. But they must be working hard, right?

[Moostache]

47. The answer is regulated capitalism

What we live with now is unregulated capitalism run amok. What follows is a bit hyperbolic, but that is also part of the problem...what I have to say SHOULD be radically insane but it is not...

The capitalist system, in pure form, is like an addict shooting uncut heroin...it may be one hell of a high, but it comes at the cost of killing the host in the process. CEOs and Boards of Directors operate in a very, very narrow paradigm, with an incredibly short time horizon. They obsess on quarterly numbers and *MAYBE* a 3 year plan (no one talks about 5 years from now any longer, anywhere), but if the action they take has a return on investment of longer than an average car loan, they cannot be bothered to consider the ramifications of losing long-term stability for short-term gains.

They do this under cover of a "fiduciary" responsibility and the guise of "shareholder value", but in the end all they produce is revenue for golden parachutes and more board positions for themselves to pass around amongst themselves. They churn the positions of authority with regularity that makes Metamucil green with envy. If a CEO is on the job longer than 3 years these days, that qualifies as a senior citizen in the management world. Instead of building businesses, and sustainable practices that matter to an employee or a community that hosts a corporation; the management is busily trying to suck every last nickel out of it, before off-shoring the profits, avoiding taxes, firing the labor and moving the whole thing to another country. Why the fuck would they care? They have no intention of being with the company for 30 months let alone 30 years.

The fundamental model of Global Business is broken beyond fixes or repairs. The shuffle of labor from the US to Europe to Asia to Africa in search of the next $0.05 an hour worker has gone on for decades, abetted by government policies that tout "market-based solutions" when in fact all they really have are slimy back-door deals, slimier 'businessmen' and exploited people in the wake of the capitalist yacht.

There is no more commitment to the community from the corporations that rape the environment, subjugate the populations, cow the politicians and eventually pull up stakes if anyone offers 0.0001% more on the next quarterly report for labor savings. There is no future in the model as it has entered its death spiral over 30 years ago. The capitalist model that worked for businesses AND workers was the one that tied compensation to productivity and wages to output. After the decoupling of these factors in the 1970's, wages and compensation have flatlined while corporate profits and wealth concentration have exploded.

There is no "secret formula" here, no magic bullet. The truth is very simple...for a capitalist system to survive and avoid eating itself, it requires heavily progressive taxation policies that encourage businesses to re-invest in themselves and their employees through profit-sharing and hiring practices that encourage the distribution of money THROUGH the entire system and not TO the top of the pyramid.

A CEO making 10-20 times the salary of a line worker or engineer? Maybe a little excessive, but not a systemic threat.
That same CEO making 400 times the salary of the others? A malignancy that will kill the whole thing in due time.

This is not that hard to figure out. It's not some kind of modern day Gordian knot. If we stay on the current path of exploitation and hoarding by the 0.01% elites, we all DIE. If we want to survive and truly address the imminent disasters in our resource marshalling and environmental crises and face the stickiest questions of what to do with automation and surplus human labor potential in the future, then we can survive. But only if the adults take over the room and send the bad actors, charlatans and clown car riders out of the room first!

[seabeckind]

53. Excellent. I may just have to borrow that.

At least grab it before the attitude adjustment bureau gets here to correct your lack of loyalty to the corporation.

This will go on your permanent record.

[IronLionZion]

73. I support regulated capitalism and markets

to ensure a level playing field and safety and all those good things.

But we are always told by the GOP that regulations are killing jobs. So they move the jobs to places where it's OK if the workers die because 1000 more are willing to replace them instead of face starvation.

One of the people discussing this issue of trade reform is this asshole: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/us-china-trade-reform

[passiveporcupine]

114. While everything you said here is 100% correct, what you failed to mention

is the reason for this new model of corporate capitalism. It's because of wall street, which demands continual higher and higher profits, which cannot be maintained by a corporation that plans for the future and is beneficial to the society.

Wall Street is the end game and it is the only game and it is in it to win. And that is all that matters to most people in this system.

The size of a corporation has a lot to do with it going public and shares trading and speculation and the end of the "good" corporation.

Wall Street wants big corporations that make millions is stock sales every day.

Small businesses are exempt from this.

How do we keep businesses small enough that they aren't taken over by the monsters? We need to have a socialist system that has employees on the board of directors to make the decisions to keep the company growing while compensating everyone fairly and screw wall street.

[HughBeaumont]

126. Oh, the CEO Larceny Cabal needs to have a rein put on their asses.

This is a great post and highlights just what is wrong with the runaway cash-and-carry model of near-pure Capitalism 'Murica's plagued with. Not only are they heisting the private coffers, they're bleeding us dry with the public largesse which was supposed to be used to hire workers. Instead, they used the government, just like the S&L robbers of the late 80s did, as their personal mints:

Take, for example, the cynically named Homeland Investment Act of 2004. The bill was passed as part of the equally cynically named American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 after intense lobbying with Hewlett-Packard in the forefront.

The purported aim of the legislation was to generate economic growth and therefore jobs at home by according corporations a one year “tax holiday” on billions in overseas profits they had stashed offshore.

The result was a $265 billion corporate giveaway.

The windfall was supposed to go toward research and development, and other job-creating endeavors.

Instead, almost all of it was put into stock buybacks as a way of funneling cash to stockholders, these prominently including CEOs.
Never mind that the bill prohibited such buybacks.

And all that talk about putting more Americans to work did not stop the corporations from cutting as many as 100,000 American jobs in the name of even greater profits.

Hewlett-Packard saved more than $4.3 billion and put more than $4 billion into stock buybacks. It laid off 14,500 workers.

[Martin Eden]

45. The trick is to push it as low as possible ...

... without inciting the serfs to grab their pitchforks.

[pampango]

51. Per capita income now is $57,000 compared to ~$40,000 in Sweden, Germany and other progressive

countries. We have plenty of financial resources at our disposal now to provide the stable middle class lifestyle that people have in progressive countries.

Rather than lowering middle class incomes, how about we redistribute those of the well-to-do? We have done it before in our history and other countries still do it today. High/progressive taxes have worked here and are working elsewhere now. It is not rocket science.

[seabeckind]

59. If we drop off the top 400

I would believe it'd be pretty depressing.

The other thing is the definition of income.

This might be a good place for!!! Tada!!!

&feature=youtu.be

[pampango]

60. We should go after more than the top 400 but that would be a start.

[seabeckind]

62. Back when the tax rates were much higher

few people paid those rates because the loopholes favored investment in the country and community.

Then in the 80s the loopholes shifted to favor investment in money to make money.

You lost your interest deduction and it was replaced by capital gains "tax".

[Silver_Witch]

52. Standing ovation!!!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

54. That isn't a remotely meaningful question - the average wage has nothing to do with poverty.

You don't even specify if you mean the mean or the median.

If you mean the mean, then letting the very rich get richer will push it extremely high, and it will tell you very little about the incomes of the poor.

If you mean the median, in will tell you literally nothing about the incomes of the lowest 49%.

A better, but still stupid, question is "What should American incomes at low centiles be?". The answer is, of course, "As high as possible", and that will vary over time.

The right question is "What set of policies will produce the highest standard of living at low centiles?". In general terms the answer appears to be a capitalist economy with highly progressive taxation and strong social spending.

More specific questions, like "will as $12.00 or a $15.00 minimum wage give you a higher standard of living at the low centiles?" are harder, though.

[HughBeaumont]

92. Is there any way you can word your questions without being patently insulting?

Seriously, reading your stuff feels akin to watching Stuart Varney or reading hectoring Classical Liberalist editorials from The Economist.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

94. I feel your OP leaves you in something of a glass house in this respect... N.T.

[Rex]

64. That is a very good question that makes some uncomfortable.

A few radicals think we should work for nothing.

[Octafish]

66. Divide GDP by Population

About $17 Trillion / 300 million = $56,666 per person.

Say it gets cut in half for overhead, re-investment and what-not; it comes to $28,333 per person.

Thank you for another outstanding OP, HughBeaumont!

I can understand how the rich are worried. There really isn't that much to go around { }

[Rex]

71. They sure are crying all over the place about fair trade.

[MisterP]

74. $4.25/hour, like Puerto Rico

[Rex]

77. Not bad, that's double what they make in India.

[Binkie The Clown]

79. Americans are SPECIAL. Our incomes should be higher than the world average.

Oh wait, that's American exceptionalism. If we criticize American exceptionalism then we should agree that average American wages should be the same as average wages globally. But if we don't want to get by on $1 a day like most of the world then we must believe that Americans are exceptional, and deserve better than people everywhere else.

Hmmm. What a dilemma. Which do I want, good wages for Americans and screw everyone else? Or the same wages for everyone and tell Americans to suck it up and get used to the same poverty that exists everywhere else?

I guess I'll stick with American exceptionalism. I deserve more money than people who aren't Americans. Glad I settled that. Now I can, in good conscience, criticize globalization because it raises the wages of non-Americans at the expense of Americans. Don't send "our" jobs to China. That only puts money in the pockets of non-American workers and we don't want that! American first. Rah! Rah! Rah!

Anybody see a problem with demanding fair wages for Americans and starvation wages for non-Americans? Really? You're O.K with that?

[HughBeaumont]

82. $1 a day would put pretty much all non-financially independent people under a bridge.

There isn't a single place in America you could live on for $1 a day unless you were completely off the grid and owned your electricity, resources, shelter and grew your own food.

Our cost of living is far higher here and never decreasing or staying flat. You know, unlike our inflation-adjusted wages.

So, what is it? Year Zero or Re-packaged Feudalism?

Thank you for proving my point.

[Binkie The Clown]

85. How low should the average WORLD wages be?

Oh, THOSE people don't matter because they're not Americans.

[HughBeaumont]

87. $5000 a year for everyone.

A king's ransom in Malaysia.

Dubya-villes and dumpster diving here.

PETER SCHIFF WAS RIGHT!!! PETER SCHIFF WAS RIGHT!!!

[Lance Bass esquire]

80. I can live comfortably on 18k a year

But I'm on the other end of the spectrum.

Mid 50s.
Wife and I retired.
Own my home and cars.
No Credit card or loan debt.
All I need to pay for isurances. Utility bills and food.


Now if I was 25..with 2 kids and have to live off that I would be totally screwed.

[Binkie The Clown]

88. I DO live comfortably on less than $12,000 per year.

And I consider myself very fortunate to have the standard of living I have. And very fortunate that I don't live here:

[HughBeaumont]

93. SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGHHHHH

Get busy bootstrapping or get busy beggin.

[Binkie The Clown]

101. "Not as bad as..."

It's popular with people who know perfectly well they're doing something wrong; being fully aware that they're doing something wrong, they feel compelled to attempt to justify it and do so by pointing to other (usually worse) actions.

At least you're not as bad as those who profit by exploiting the world's poor.

[Hoyt]

83. On the bright side, if 90% of people only made $18K, housing and everything else would be less or

non-existent. Of course, new houses might have outhouses or latrines rather than bathrooms. Look at what happened to housing values during recession, or drug prices in poor countries. Not suggesting a reduction in income.

[HughBeaumont]

84. That's a "Bright Side"??

Housing wouldn't be less. Neither would anything else. American corporations could give fuck all about how little you make, just so long as you buy it.

[Hoyt]

90. Sorry, if they can't sell a product to the masses, they aren't going to make any money. You'd

see houses designed to be affordable to people, not houses designed for the 5% that might be able to afford ClusterMansions. A few high end companies would build houses for those who can afford them. The rest of us would get a small, shipping container house.

And companies do care what you make. If no one can afford what they want to sell -- high profit houses in this case -- they'll make low profit houses people can afford. For the average $18Ker, they'd be quite sparse, slightly better than living under a bridge.

[HughBeaumont]

96. Someone better tell the universities that.

Someone better tell the hospitals and insurance conglomerates.

You know, unless there's going to be no future need for higher education or health care.

[Rex]

91. I think it was a joke.

[Kablooie]

86. I suggest that Charles Dicken's London would be an excellent model to follow.

And Ebenezer Scrooge before the ghosts appeared would be an admirable model for all employers.

[fleabiscuit]

89. Let's benchmark the golden age at 1968 for minimum wage.

We'll need to raise the current minimum wage to $16 per hour to do that, and grow it along with real inflation. Might as well strengthen and expand social security at the same time so no-one needs to have 401K's and not be reliant on company pensions only. Expand medicare for all. Price fix the cost of medications. Let's also go back to land taxes to support our public needs...

[Stinky The Clown]

95. I hope your next screed will be in opposition to nuance.

Its very overrated.

[nilesobek]

99. Working all the time and still have total poverty. Rec for comments.

[TheFarseer]

102. Thank you for this post

I can't believe what I'm reading here lately. Everyone seems to be for TPP, outsourcing and whatever else the corps want because it wouldn't be PC to keep American jobs in the US and maintain a higher standard of living than other countries. I hate to break it to you all, but Trump or Hill will be president of the United States, not the galactic emperor. As such it is their job to keep Americans safe and enjoying as high a standard of living as they can. Which doesn't mean we have to tear down other countries but we have to deal in a fair way that is also in the best interests of the American

Im honestly not sure if people are trying to be PC or if people are thinking globally and don't see their country as something to fight for or if the media has sold them that trade is beneficial, never mind all the closed factories or if they just enjoy cheep crap from China. But I have definitely noticed a sudden flip to "we all love globalization"

[HughBeaumont]

104. It's depressing for sure.

Hard to believe the embrace of laissez-fail and Ed Conard talking points. Disappointing that some on here are kowtowing to the likes of the Kochs and Peter Schiff. We're better than this. A worker being raised at the price of another's livelihood and progress and at the behest of a profiteer that stands to get ever wealthier isn't a free market, it's abhorrent.

I'm never going to cheerlead job loss and income depletion. It's the anathema of progress. We've conceded ENOUGH.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

105. I've met business types who resent the idea of paying for an employee's car payments.

[jtuck004]

107. I think that depends on who the person with the checkbook thinks is average.

"On Friday, President Obama added his signature to legislation that will cut $8.7 billion in food stamp benefits over the next 10 years, causing 850,000 households to lose an average of $90 per month. The signing of the legislation known as the 2014 Farm Bill occurred at a public event in East Lansing, Mich.
...
Obama’s remarks also focused heavily on economic inequality, which he has previously called “the defining challenge of our time.” The Farm Bill, he said, would “give more Americans a shot at opportunity.”
...

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-signs-food-stamp-cut

“The President and Mrs. Obama announced today that their daughter Malia will attend Harvard University in the fall of 2017 as a member of the Class of 2021,” the office of the First Lady announced (via AP). “Malia will take a gap year before beginning school.”

Source: President Obama’s Daughter Malia to Attend Harvard in Fall 2017 | Barack Obama, Malia Obama, Michelle Obama
http://www.justjared.com/2016/05/01/president-obamas-daughter-malia-to-attend-harvard-in-fall-2017/?trackback=tsmclip

[tenderfoot]

108. Oh come now. McDonald's is expanding in India - Earth is Saved!

You know what else cracks me up about this site anymore is how many post articles about how if "job creators" have to pay their employees more, then prices will go up. Despite that prices never go down when people get their pay cut. Then they'll go on about jobs being automated, etc. as if the poster themself hasn't anything to fear because we're far away from automating online trolling from the American Enterprise Institute.

[HughBeaumont]

115. I've even seen "say hello to your replacement, $15/hr supporters" trolls . . .

. . . followed by pictures of self-serve kiosks. HERE. On DU.

The stuff of "The Bottom of the Internet that's NOT DU". ON FUCKING DU.

This is supposed to be a sanctuary from such bullshit. NO more. It's now Austrian School Central and you'd better get busy bootstrapping or get on the ice floe. What the fuckity FUCK, son?

Oh, and unfortunately for that kiosk canard, the minimum wage is still at $7.25, yet the kiosks are still being installed. It's called near-Pure Capitalism; it isn't the people wanting a better life that are to blame for that.

[Aerows]

112. If you aren't starving to death

you are getting paid too much, seems to be the prevailing opinion. Not "me" of course, but *you*.

[PowerToThePeople]

118. Better to die and decrease the surplus population.

[DirkGently]

119. KNR. n/t

[AZ Progressive]

120. Supporters of unfair competition are anti-society and support breaking down civilization

Society is an ecosystem and unfair competition throws a monkeywrench that destabilizes societies and ultimately break them down.

[mwooldri]

121. Define average. Define income.

If housing costs were nil, utilities were nil, food dirt cheap... yes Americans can live on little. However housing isn't cheap, we pay for healthcare... now if we're talking $5,000 a month for a family of four then I think that could be a great average American income to have. We're not there by a long shot.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

122. kick for exposure.

Not a happy kick. ☹️

[senseandsensibility]

124. Kick because I agree

and thank you for posting. I responded above to the wrong person.

[silvershadow]

125. Ross Perot told us the plan in 92. He laid it all out. And thus far, all has been going just

as he said it would. And the goal he said was to lower our wages was others rise. He said jobs wouldn't even begin to come back until there was equity. Back then I think the figure he used was $5 an hour. The example I recall was Mexico rises to $5 and America lowers to $5. Not sure what that would be in today's wages. Probably $5.

[AngryAmish]

128. At a level that would please a Pakistani bricklayer.