Simple Charts Explain How 90% of Americans Get Almost Nothin

know1 wrote:

inlet13 wrote:

I rarely post in here, but I had to chime in here...

Charts like these are purposefully misleading. The blue lines representing the poorest Americans could have more than doubled/tripled, yet because of the scale, a reader wouldn't be able to tell.

So, I will ask a thought-provoking question... why did the author not use "growth" as the scale of comparison? That way the top,middle and lower classes could have been compared on the chart with ease. This exclusion = an agenda in my eyes.

I also find it very interesting they use "before tax income". The richest 1% of American's pay almost 40% of all income taxes. The top 5% pay almost 60%. Why use before tax income when we have such a progressive tax system? It makes the argument silly.

Regardless, it's an interesting discussion. But, I still don't understand even if has occured in after tax income why income inequality is necessarily bad. If you have ten people in society and the richest makes 100K and the poorest makes 10K. If each has 10% growth in their income over a year, the richest would now make 110K and the poorest now makes 11K. The gap has grown, yet all are better off. Income inequality can be a very, very good thing for a society.

Ok... so now that I got that out, I'm ready to go away.

I thought the same thing. Charts and data can be made to be purposefully misleading and that is what was done here. People fall for that so easily without really analyzing what is being said...or more importantly what is NOT being said.