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!

Raising America’s Pay II. How Can We Do It?

Posted on June 10, 2014 by jackheidel

My last post “Raising America’s Pay” addresses a new report from the Economic Policy Institute, “Raising America’s Pay: Why It’s Our Central Economic Policy Challenge”. Its starting point is the now generally accepted view that wages for the typical American worker have been flat ever since the early 1970s even though labor productivity has continued to rise steadily.
The EPI authors recognize that globalization and the growth of technology have contributed to wage stagnation even though they blame malign policy decisions as well. I do agree with them that the resulting increase in economic inequality is detrimental to America. I also agree with them that the way to address inequality is for wages to go up. The best way to accomplish this is to lower unemployment by increasing economic growth. This will happen when large numbers of consumers start spending more money, thereby increasing demand. Does this sound like a vicious circle? It need not be!
The above chart from the Wall Street Journal shows that the net worth of U.S. households has now more than recovered from the Great Recession. The problem is that most of this new wealth has gone to the people with the highest incomes who are more likely to save it. What we need to do is “redistribute” (gasp!) some of this vast sum of new wealth back to middle and lower income people who would be much more likely to spend it.
There is a straightforward way to do this. Broad based tax reform! Lower everyone’s tax rates paid for by closing loopholes and shrinking deductions which primarily benefit the wealthy. This will be a pure gain in income for the two thirds of Americans, about 80 million, who pay income taxes but do not itemize deductions, most of whom are in the lower and middle income brackets. These people are likely to spend most of their new income, thus giving the economy the big boost that it needs!
Our leaders in Washington should be able to figure this out!

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!

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.

The Resurrection of Karl Marx

Posted on April 20, 2014 by jackheidel

The French economist Thomas Piketty is creating a huge stir with the publication in English of his new book “Capital in the 21^st Century.” Mr. Piketty develops a very simple idea, with reams and reams of data. Namely that income from wealth, i.e. investment income, typically grows faster than income from wages and GDP. This means that the value of private capital is growing steadily as a percentage of national income. This trend has been occurring ever since 1950, at the end of WWII, and is likely to continue indefinitely absent new mega shocks to the global economy such as another world war.
In other words, wealth inequality is rapidly increasing just as is income inequality. Today’s New York Times has an interesting article “Taking on Adam Smith (and Karl Marx)” discussing Mr. Piketty’s background and how it has influenced his research. “No revolutionary, Mr. Piketty says that inequality by itself is acceptable to the extent it spurs individual initiative and the generation of wealth. But extreme economic inequality, he contends, will have a deep and deleterious impact on democratic values,” says the reporter.
Now that income inequality and wealth inequality are clearly well documented, the question is how our democratic society will respond through the political process. First of all, we need to agree to take the problem seriously. Equality of opportunity and economic mobility still exist but it is getting harder and harder to move up the income ladder. What our country badly needs right now is an economic program that will get our economy growing faster in order to create more jobs as well as bringing in more tax revenue to pay for government.
One way to accomplish this is with

Broad-based tax reform to lower rates in order to put more money in the hands of people who will spend it on basic necessities as well as business expansion. Lower rates can be paid for by closing loopholes and deductions which primarily affect the wealthy.
A low percentage (1% or 2%) tax on wealth (i.e. financial assets) with a fairly high personal exemption of perhaps $10 million in order to only include the most wealthy. This would raise about $200 billion per year which could be used to fund a wide scale infrastructure renovation program which would provide employment to millions of people.

Such a wealth tax would be a highly visible means of addressing economic inequality in a way which would greatly benefit to the economy at the same time.

Is Capitalism in Crisis?

Posted on April 17, 2014 by jackheidel

The economist and public lecturer, Richard Wolff, gave an address in Omaha NE last night, entitled “Capitalism in Crisis: How Lopsided Wealth Distribution Threatens Our Democracy”. His thesis is that after 150 years, from 1820 – 1970, of steadily increasing worker productivity and matching wage gains, a structural change has taken place in our economy. Since 1970 worker productivity has continued to increase at the same historical rate while the median wage level has been flat with no appreciable increase. This wage stagnation has been caused by an imbalance of supply and demand as follows:

Technology has eliminated lots of low skill and medium skill jobs in the U.S.
Globalization has made it less expensive for low skill jobs to be performed in the developing world at lower cost than in the U.S.
At the same time as jobs were being replaced by technology and disappearing overseas, millions of women entered the labor force.
A new wave of Hispanic immigration has caused even more competition for low skilled jobs.

In addition, stagnant wages for the low skilled and medium skilled worker have been accompanied by an increase in private debt through the advent of credit cards and subprime mortgage borrowing. This enormous increase of consumer debt led to the housing bubble, its bursting in 2007-2008, and the resulting Great Recession.
Five years after the end of the recession in June 2009, we still have an enormous mess on our hands: a stagnant economy, high unemployment, massive and increasing debt and a fractious political process. How in the world are we going to come together to address our perilous situation in a rational and timely manner?
Mr. Wolff believes that capitalism’s faults are too severe to be fixed with regulatory tweaks. He also agrees that socialism has proven to be unsuccessful where it has been tried. He proposes a new economic system of “Workers’ Self-Directed Enterprises” as an alternative.
I agree with Mr. Wolff that capitalism is in a crisis but I think that it can be repaired from within. The challenge is to simultaneously give our economy a sufficient boost to put millions of people back to work and to do this while dramatically shrinking our annual deficits in order to get our massive debt on a downward trajectory as a percent of GDP. How to do this is the main focus of my blog, day in and day out!

Wealth Inequality vs Income Inequality

Posted on April 13, 2014 by jackheidel

The Yale Economist and Nobel Prize winner, Robert Shiller, has an article in today’s New York Times, “Better Insurance Against Inequality”, proposing that “taxes should be indexed to income inequality so that they automatically become more progressive – meaning that the marginal tax rate for the highest income people will rise – if income equality becomes much worse.”
We do know, of course, that income inequality is steadily increasing in the U.S. It is in fact essentially folklore that the top 1% of Americans is collecting a larger and larger share of the national income. Furthermore the French economist, Thomas Piketty, has recently shown that there is also “a relentless widening of disparity in wealth”.
Our democratic political system will surely respond in some way to this increasing gap between the rich and the poor. It is important to our future wellbeing to respond in a constructive manner. Today’s top tax rate of 39.6% is already very high and Mr. Shiller admits that the top rate would have to rise well over 75% in his plan.
Our biggest economic problem today is a stagnant economy. We badly need faster economic growth, in order to put people back to work and to bring in more revenue to shrink the deficit. Today what we need is lower tax rates, to put more money in the hands of people who will spend it, including potential entrepreneurs who will invest it in new businesses. Raising tax rates to address rising income inequality is therefore self-defeating as an economic strategy.
Rather let’s tax people’s financial assets after they have earned their money. A 1% wealth tax with a relatively high $10,000,000 personal exemption would bring in approximately $200 billion per year. $200 billion per year would enable us to pay down our deficit at a much faster rate as well as having a lot left over to begin an extensive infrastructure renewal program (for example)!

Response to a Persistent Critic

Posted on April 6, 2014 by jackheidel

You keep saying that we need lower tax rates to boost the economy but what makes you think this will help? Businesses are sitting on piles of cash. They have plenty of money to invest in expansion. What they need are more customers. The basic problem is not enough demand for more goods. This is what is holding back the economy. It doesn’t much matter what the tax rates are. If the demand and customers are there, businesses will spend their own money or borrow as much money as they need, at low interest rates, to produce all the products they can sell. Anonymous Critic

I have several responses to this criticism:

First of all I want to make it clear that all cuts in tax rates must be offset by shrinking or eliminating tax preferences. So there will be no loss of tax revenue. Two thirds of all taxpayers take the standard deduction and will therefore automatically benefit from lower tax rates. This will put tens of billions of new dollars into the hands of middle class wage earners who will spend most of this money because they have tight budgets. This will give the economy a big boost.
As I discussed in my blog post from October 26, 2013 “Where are the Jobs? II. How to Create More of Them,” most net new job creation comes from businesses less than one year old, the true “startups.” New business owners are typically not wealthy, with lots of personal tax deductions. They need all the financial resources they can muster. Lower tax rates will save them money and therefore help them get their new business going.
In general, tax deductions such as for mortgage interest, municipal bond interest payments, state and local taxes, etc. benefit the wealthiest tax payers. Therefore the lowering of tax rates, offset by shrinking tax deductions, represents a shift of funds from the wealthier to the less wealthy. This will at least slow down the increase of inequality which afflicts the modern world.

Conclusion: Lower tax rates will put more money in the hands of people who will spend it, thereby boosting the economy by creating more demand, provide support for entrepreneurs starting new businesses (which will create more jobs) and lessen income inequality. All in all this represents major progress!

It Does Not Add Up

Jack Heidel's blog on fiscal responsibility

Tag Archives: Economic inequality