Economic Expansion Is Not Enough

Posted on September 28, 2014 by jackheidel

The Washington Post reporter Robert Samuelson gives our economy today a B-, because the unemployment rate has inched down to 6.1%, fulltime employment is up to 105.8 million in 2013 from 99.5 million in 2010, and full-time women’s pay reached a high of 78% of men’s pay in 2013. The big negative, of course, is that median household income was $51,939 in 2013, down from $56,436 in 2007, just before the financial crisis.
The Bard College economist Pavlina Tcherneva, as summarized by the reporter Neil Irwin in yesterday’s New York Times, shows what has gone wrong with economic and monetary policy since the end of the Great Recession in June 2009. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (an $850 billion stimulus package) did boost the economy but it primarily aided “the skilled, employable, highly educated, and relatively highly-paid wage and salary workers.”
On the other hand the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policies have kept interest rates remarkably low and have thereby caused investors to buy stocks rather than bonds in order to get higher returns. This has artificially boosted stock prices and has been especially advantageous to the top 10% and, even more so, the top 1%.
What is needed, according to Ms. Tcherneva, is a targeted, bottom-up approach to fiscal policy, which provides more and better paying jobs directly to middle- and lower-income wage earners. Her suggestion is for public works jobs, public service employment, green jobs, etc., all of which would require large infusions of federal money thereby worsening the federal deficit.
A much better approach would be broad based tax reform, lowering tax rates across the board, paid for by closing the loopholes and deductions which primarily benefit the rich. Since the 64% of taxpayers who do not itemize deductions would receive an effective pay boost, this would amount to a tax reform program targeted to exactly the middle- and low-income wage earners who have not yet recovered from the recession. These folks would most likely spend their extra income, thus further boosting the economy (see my previous post).

Which Is More Important: Increasing Growth or Decreasing Inequality?

Posted on September 11, 2014 by jackheidel

The progressive Global Strategy Group has recently released a new survey report “Focus on Growth to Frame Priorities” with a valuable message for all political candidates, left, right and center.
GSG surveyed 3000 registered voters earlier this year and discovered that they overwhelmingly rate economic growth as a higher priority than economic fairness, economic justice, expanding the middle class, increasing wages or decreasing income inequality. In fact, economic growth trumped all of these alternative policy strategies by wide margins as shown below.
GSG then goes on to list various possible growth strategies in order of voter popularity such as making college more affordable, modernizing infrastructure, improving K-12 education and others (see below). This list of possible growth strategies is made up mostly of new spending programs. The less costly might be doable by reforming existing spending programs. But expensive new programs simply will not fly in today’s high deficit environment.
What is needed is a growth strategy which does not require new spending. The obvious choice is tax reform. For example, the fourth item in the above chart, reduce outsourcing by American companies, could be addressed by reforming corporate taxes.
But an even better growth strategy is individual tax reform whereby tax rates are lowered across the board, paid for by shrinking the many loopholes and deductions which primarily benefit the wealthy.
I described such a plan in detail in a previous post, but here is a brief summary: 64% of taxpayers do not itemize their deductions. This means that any reduction in tax rates will put money in their pockets. Since these are primarily the same middle- and lower-income workers with stagnant incomes, they will likely spend most of their increased pay, thus giving the economy a big boost.
In summary, the GSG report provides ammunition for political candidates of all ideological stripes. Let’s have a contest to see which party can be the most pro-growth. The winner will be the American people!

Does Economic Growth Depend on Healthcare Expansion?

Posted on June 30, 2014 by jackheidel

Even though economic growth is much too slow, it has been steadily increasing since the end of the Great Recession at a rate of about 2.2% per year. But our economy actually shrunk at a 2.9% rate in the first quarter of 2014. Healthcare spending decreased by 6.9% in the first quarter and therefore contributed to this overall drop in GNP.
The New York Times’ economic reporter, Neil Irwin, discusses the connection, ”Our Economic Growth Is a Mystery. Obamacare is the Reason.” in yesterday’s paper. Since healthcare makes up one-sixth of the economy, and the implementation of Obamacare is expanding the healthcare sector, it is not surprising that the economy stumbles if Obamacare stumbles.
But he continues “The United States also has the most expensive healthcare system in the world, without producing better health outcomes. If the nation succeeds in reducing health care costs while also getting coverage for more people, it would be a huge win for the country’s long term competitiveness. Overtime the dollars that aren’t being spent on overpriced or unneeded health services can go to other stuff which makes life better: houses, college education, restaurant meals and the like.”
Conclusion: we need to try all the harder to figure out how to grow the economy faster. The best single thing we can do about this is to implement fundamental tax reform whereby individual tax rates are cut across the board, paid for by closing many of the loopholes and deductions which primarily benefit the rich. The two thirds of taxpayers who do not itemize deductions will automatically receive a tax reduction in this way. Since they are middle and lower income wage earners, with largely stagnant incomes, they will tend to spend their tax savings, thereby boosting the economy.
The loopholes enjoyed by the wealthy are example of crony capitalism which both liberals and conservatives complain about. Closing these loopholes and other deductions is a very good way to lessen income inequality. Our leaders should be able to work together in this direction!

A Scarred U.S. Economy

Posted on June 12, 2014 by jackheidel

Today’s New York Times has an article “U.S. Economic Recovery Looks Distant as Growth Stalls”, summarizing the predominant view of economic experts that annual growth of the U.S. economy in the future is now expected to be only 2.1%, about two-thirds of the historical rate of 3%.
This is, of course, disappointing since it means continued stagnation of household incomes as well as high unemployment. Much of the projected decline in GDP growth is attributed to structural factors such as:

The number of Americans receiving disability benefits has increased significantly in recent years. Few of these people will ever return to work.
Fewer immigrants are arriving. There are now two million fewer people over the age of 16 than had been projected in 2007.
The birth rate has declined each year from 2007.
Government spending on public investment has fallen by 8% since the recession started. Corporate investment has been lackluster.
Fewer businesses are being created and existing businesses are spending less on research and development.
Rising income inequality results in “secular stagnation” whereby there is insufficient consumer spending to stimulate economic growth.

There are lots of head winds slowing down the economy. As the NYT article says, “for more than a century the pace of growth was reliably resilient, bouncing back after recessions like a car returning to its cruising speed after a roadblock.” Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew says that the government now expects annual growth to be permanently slower.
Should we resign ourselves to this pessimistic attitude or should we consider whether or not there is any practical and feasible alternative?
There is, in fact, an easy way to speed up growth. Broad-based tax reform would do it. By this I mean lowering tax rates across the board paid for by closing loopholes and shrinking the deductions which primarily benefit the wealthy. This would place more income in the hands of the two-thirds of taxpayers who do not itemize deductions. These are typically middle and lower income folks with stagnant incomes. They would spend their tax savings, thereby giving the economy a big boost.
This would also amount to redistribution from the rich to the poor, making us a more equal society in the process. It’s a win-win for our economy and for social harmony. What’s holding us back?

Redistribution, Inequality and Growth

Posted on May 22, 2014 by jackheidel

Most people agree that income inequality and wealth inequality are increasing in the U.S. Likewise anyone who’s paying attention is aware of our slow rate of GDP growth, averaging 2.2% per year, since the end of the recession five years ago. Is there a connection between inequality and slow growth? Maybe!
First of all, it is important to note that income inequality in the past 30 years has been greatly offset by federal taxes and transfer programs as shown in the October 2011 chart (above) from the Congressional Budget Office.
Secondly, the Economist discusses this situation in the article “Inequality v growth”. The economists Jonathan Ostry, Andrew Berg and Charalambos Tasangarides have shown (see above chart) that a large amount of redistribution affects growth more negatively than a smaller amount of redistribution.
Economists generally agree that the recovery has been slowed down by a lack of demand by consumers for more goods. So the recovery should speed up as less affluent consumers feel secure enough to spend more money. Two things, to start with, can make this happen. One is a restoration of the housing market so that homeowners have more equity (which can be borrowed and spent). Another way to accomplish this is with government redistribution programs, such as food stamps and Medicaid, for low income people.
But there is an even better way to put money in the hands of people who will spend it, and at no cost to the government. I am talking about broad based tax reform, whereby tax rates are lowered for everyone, offset by closing tax loopholes and shrinking deductions, which primarily benefit the wealthy. For the two-thirds of taxpayers who do not itemize deductions, and who tend to be the less affluent, such a tax rate cut will put money in their pockets, most of which they will spend.
Such a tax program as this would be a direct shift of resources from the wealthy to everyone else, thereby lessening inequality. It would stimulate the economy, creating millions of new and higher paying jobs, and thereby increasing tax revenue and lowering the deficit. Win, win, win, win!

An Inequality Culprit: Single-Parent Families

Posted on May 6, 2014 by jackheidel

It is generally agreed that income inequality in the U.S. is bad and getting worse. Before we can address it effectively, we have to understand what is causing it. In this regard the Wall Street Journal had an article recently, “Ignoring an Inequality Culprit: Single-Parent Families”, by two scholars, Robert Maranto and Michael Crouch, from the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas.
Mr. Maranto and Mr. Crouch call attention to what they call “the strongest statistical correlate of inequality in the United States: the rise of single parent families during the past half century. … In 1960, more than 76% of African-Americans and nearly 97% of whites were born to married couples. Today the percentage is 30% for blacks and 70% for whites. … This trend, coupled with high divorce rates, means that roughly 25% of American children now live in single-parent homes, twice the percentage in Europe (12%). Roughly a third of American children live apart from their fathers.” In addition, “more than 20% of children in single-parent families live in poverty long-term, compared with 2% of those raised in two parent families.” It is estimated “that 41% of the economic inequality created between 1976-2000 was the result of changed family structure.”
The authors wonder why there is not more public attention given to this depressing state of affairs and conclude that

Intellectual and cultural elites lean to the left and it is primarily social conservatives who promote traditional family structure.
Family breakup has hit minority communities the hardest. Therefore public discussion can be characterized as being racist.
This is a very hard problem to solve. Marriage and childrearing involve highly personal choices which cannot be dictated by society.

In this regard, my March 11, 2014 post “A balanced and Sensible Antipoverty Program”, emphasizes the need to at least remove marriage penalties from government welfare policy.
As the authors conclude, “The first step is to acknowledge the problem.”

The Growth Deficit

Posted on May 1, 2014 by jackheidel

I am a fiscal conservative, as well as a social moderate, which means that I don’t fit very easily into a standard mold. I am non-doctrinaire, non-ideological and mostly nonpartisan. I vote for candidates from both major parties as well as independents. I prefer a balanced government with neither party in complete control.
My most direct sources of information on fiscal and economic issues are the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, both of which I read assiduously on a daily basis. When these two newspapers disagree on a particular issue, then I usually decide that the truth lies somewhere in between.
Our biggest national problem right now, in my opinion, is the stagnant economy. In today’s WSJ, the lead editorial, “The Growth Deficit”, clearly describes how bad the situation is. Since the Great Recession ended in June 2009, our rate of GDP growth has averaged 2.2% per year. This compares with a 4.1% annual rate of growth for all post-1960 recovery periods.
Such a slow rate of growth causes all sorts of problems. First of all, it explains why our unemployment rate is still so high at 6.7% after five years of recovery. This means that between 15 and 20 million people are still unemployed or underemployed. Such a large human toll means a huge increase in government welfare expenses for food stamps, unemployment insurance, etc. Higher unemployment also means less tax revenue collected by the federal government. This translates into much larger deficit spending, adding to the already massive national debt.
There are lots of things which can be done to increase growth, for example:

Lowering tax rates on individuals to put more money in the hands of the 2/3 of Americans who do not itemize deductions on their tax returns. They’ll spend this extra income and create more demand! Pay for this by closing loopholes and deductions, which are used primarily by the wealthy. Besides stimulating the economy, this will simultaneously address increasing income inequality.
Lowering tax rates on corporations to encourage multinationals to bring their foreign profits back home for reinvestment or paying dividends. Again, balanced by eliminating deductions enjoyed by privileged corporations.
Relax regulatory burdens on small businesses where most new jobs are created.
Reform immigration procedures by boosting the number of H1-B visas to attract more highly skilled, and entrepreneurial, foreign workers.
Grant trade promotion authority to the President to speed up new trade agreements.

We should be clamoring for our national leaders to be acting on these fronts. A strong economy is the very backbone of our success as a nation!

Saving the System

Posted on April 29, 2014 by jackheidel

I seldom use the New York Times sociological columnist, David Brooks, as a source for my blog posts because I am focused primarily on economic and fiscal issues. But his column today, “Saving The System,” is highly pertinent to my message.
“All around, the fabric of peace and order is fraying. The leaders of Russia and Ukraine escalate their apocalyptic rhetoric. The Sunni-Shiite split worsens as Syria and Iraq slide into chaos. China pushes its weight around in the Pacific. … The U.S. faces a death by a thousand cuts dilemma. No individual problem is worth devoting giant resources to. But, collectively, all the little problems can undermine the modern system.”
In addition to all of these pesky worldwide problems, our free enterprise economic system is under siege. Wages have been largely stagnant since the early 1970s and income inequality is growing as the top 1%, and perhaps the top 10 or 15% as well, do much better than everyone else. And just lately we have also learned from the French economist, Thomas Piketty, that wealth inequality has been growing steadily ever since about 1950 and is likely to get substantially worse in the future.
In other words, western civilization is under threat in more ways than one. What are we going to do about it? At the risk of oversimplifying, I believe that the single best thing we can do is to undertake fundamental tax reform to make our economy stronger. Cut everyone’s tax rates and pay for it by closing loopholes and deductions which primarily benefit the wealthy.

Lower tax rates will put more money in the hands of the two thirds of Americans who don’t itemize their tax deductions. These are largely the same people with stagnant wages and so they will spend this extra income they receive.
The resulting increase in demand will put millions of people back to work and thereby increase tax revenues which will help balance the budget. This shift of income from the wealthy to the less wealthy will reduce income inequality.
Although harder to implement politically, a low (between 1% and 2%) wealth tax on financial assets above a threshold of $10 million per individual, would be a highly visible way to address wealth inequality. The substantial sum of revenue raised by this method could be used to fund national priorities as well as paying down the deficit.

I don’t want to leave the impression that I consider this program to be a panacea for strengthening our country. But it would help and we need to make some big changes to maintain our status as world leader.

Is America Falling Behind?

Posted on April 24, 2014 by jackheidel

Yesterday’s New York Times has a very interesting article, “U.S. Middle Class No Longer World’s Richest”, demonstrating that from 1980 -2010 the median wage in many other developed nations has grown faster than in the U.S. The chart below does show that the U.S. median wage is still growing but just not as fast as elsewhere.
The authors suggest three reasons to explain what is happening:

Educational attainment in the U.S. is growing more slowly than in the rest of the industrialized world.
A larger portion of business profits in the U.S. is going to top executives meaning less for middle and low income workers.
There is a higher degree of income redistribution (through taxation) in Canada and Western Europe than in the U.S.

The data presented in this article is more elaborate but nevertheless consistent with what other studies are showing. We are still on top but we need to make some major changes in order to stay there. For example:

Most states have adopted the national Common Core curriculum for K – 12 schools. In today’s highly competitive global environment, this will enable a more rigorous evaluation of educational attainment between the states and should, therefore, improve overall academic achievement.
The best way to raise salaries for middle and low-income workers is to boost economic output overall. Fundamental tax reform, with lower tax rates for everyone, offset by closing loopholes and lowering deductions for the wealthy, will put more money in the hands of the people most likely to spend it. This will increase demand and make the economy grow faster.
As a highly visible way of addressing economic inequality in the U.S., institute a relatively small, i.e. 1% or 2%, wealth tax on the assets of individuals with a net worth exceeding $10 million. This would raise up to $200 billion per year which could be used for an extensive infrastructure renewal program, creating lots of jobs and further boosting the economy, with a lot left over to devote to shrinking our massive federal deficits.

A program like this encourages everyone to work hard and reach their highest potential, including accumulating as much wealth as they are able to. But the people at the very top, i.e. the superrich, will be required to give back a little bit more in order to benefit the entire country.

The Resurrection of Karl Marx II. Let’s React But Not Overreact!

Posted on April 22, 2014 by jackheidel

This morning’s Wall Street Journal has a book review by the New York fund manager, Daniel Shuchman, “Thomas Piketty Revives Karl Marx for the 21^st Century” of Thomas Piketty’s new book “Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century.” As I recently discussed, Piketty makes the simple observation that income from wealth, i.e. investment income, grows faster than income from wages or GDP.
He then provides a large quantity of data showing how this has played out since the end of WWII. He plausibly predicts that the value of private capital as a percentage of national income will continue to grow indefinitely into the future.
This much is straightforward. The question is how we should react to a steadily increasing and very large concentration of wealth in the hands of a small percentage of people. Mr. Piketty’s own idea is, for example, to establish an 80% tax rate on incomes starting at “$500,000 or $1,000,000” in order “to put an end to such incomes.” Mr. Shuchman attempts to discredit Mr. Piketty by focusing in on such socialistic views for dealing with the problem rather than discussing the intrinsic merit of Piketty’s basic thesis about the buildup of great wealth in the first place.
My own view is that Mr. Piketty has clearly identified a weakness of capitalism and that it behooves supporters of free markets and private initiative to address this problem in a constructive way, for example, as follows.
We need fundamental broad-based tax reform, i.e. lower tax rates in exchange for closing loop-holes and lowering deductions, in order to boost the economy and create more jobs. As part of a major tax overhaul, we could also establish a relatively small wealth tax, of about 1% or 2%, on assets over $10,000,000, which would raise as much as $200 billion per year. This much money could be used to begin a large scale program of infrastructure renewal as well as leaving a lot left over to make significant payments on reducing our annual deficit.
Such an overall plan would address both income inequality and wealth inequality in a highly visible manner while simultaneously helping our economy.

It Does Not Add Up

Jack Heidel's blog on fiscal responsibility

Category Archives: economic inequality