Are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poor?

[TheCaliforniaLife]

There is this common rhetoric of democrats/socialists that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. I believe CNN had this guy on TV today saying how the rich take up a larger percentage of the money supply than they did decades back. What do you guys think about this?

[noxagol]

Yes, all thanks to gubmint.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

If the cost to enter the market is too damn high because the market is taxed, regulated, monopolized, or licensed expect the rich to get richer.

When competition is stifled or downright outlawed from taxation, regulation, monopolization, or licensure expect the rich to get richer.

[anaconda]

Yes. All the economic data shows this is the case.

[erowe1]

No. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting richer as well.

Check out this video:
http://reason.tv/video/show/living-large

[erowe1]

Yes. All the economic data shows this is the case.

What data?

[angelatc]

There is this common rhetoric of democrats/socialists that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. I believe CNN had this guy on TV today saying how the rich take up a larger percentage of the money supply than they did decades back. What do you guys think about this?

I think it doesn't matter. With a handful of exceptions, the people listed as the richest people in America changes every year. Same goes for the poor side - except for a handful of people, the people who were poor 10 years ago aren't poor today.


And Erowe is right - the poor are getting richer too. Our positions aren't static. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/11/rich-are-getting-richer-and-poor-are.html

But it's a popular talking point among those that live for class warfare.

[sevin]

No. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting richer as well.

Check out this video:
http://reason.tv/video/show/living-large

Are you kidding me? Yes, thanks to technological development, things are better for the middle class. But that doesn't mean the middle class isn't being exploited. And the only way the middle class are able to buy a lot of nice things is with credit, anyway. It doesn't make them any richer. Debt makes you poorer.

[teacherone]

yes...this is typical of statist societies in which special interests buy influence by giving chump change to politicians in exchange for millions and billions in subsidies both financial and legislative.

inflation doesn't help either as high powered money always goes to the well connected jacking up prices years down the line by the time it trickles down to the mundanes.

[angelatc]

Are you kidding me? Yes, thanks to technological development, things are better for the middle class. But that doesn't mean the middle class isn't being exploited. And the only way the middle class are able to buy a lot of nice things is with credit, anyway. It doesn't make them any richer. Debt makes you poorer.

Where's your proof though? http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/san-club/ :


Note that in the last four years the Bureau has tracked:

* The 10th percentile cutoff went up by more than the cutoffs for the richest three percentiles. The rich did not get proportionally richer than the poorest of the poor.

* In the aggregate, it’s fair to say that no income group “lost ground.”

* The Gini coefficient, which is a statistical measure of income inequality — a value of zero would mean that everyone has the same income, and a value of one would mean that one person makes all the income — barely budged, and the budge was in the direction of less inequality.

[WillieKamm]

I don't know what the agenda is here but the middle is being squeezed out in this country, and has been since the 1970's. We are well on our way to a two tier Banana Republic style economy. If you're doing well, good for you. I don't lust after or covet your goods or lifestyle. I'm not into class warfare in any way. What I am into is creating wealth opportunites and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are the collapse of our industrial economy and python like constricting regulations on business, we are killing ourselves.

[ILUVRP]

I agree that the middle class has been losing since the early 80's with the " trickle down bs ". Nothing has trickled down .

[erowe1]

Are you kidding me? Yes, thanks to technological development, things are better for the middle class. But that doesn't mean the middle class isn't being exploited. And the only way the middle class are able to buy a lot of nice things is with credit, anyway. It doesn't make them any richer. Debt makes you poorer.

Getting exploited is a good thing. Some of us call it having a job. Exploitation is the way the poor get rich.

If the reason you mention credit is because of that Drew Carey video, I think you're right. In the examples he includes, he doesn't mention if those people could actually afford all the great toys they had. But the fact remains that the poor are getting richer. And if those anecdotes don't prove it, the studies he pointed to about how we have to work so many fewer hours to get so much more than people in years past did does.

[Brian4Liberty]

No. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting richer as well.

Check out this video:
http://reason.tv/video/show/living-large

Sorry, a video about the economic conditions of the middle class that completely ignores debt levels is disingenuous. And a few people at a lake with boats in no way constitutes a valid scientific sample.

Other points:

- Our toys are what defines us? Cell phones and boats? Yes, the price of cell phones has come down for obvious reasons. Who cares? A cell phone makes us so much better off? Who cares if the cost of the TV drops in half and doubles in size? How many TVs does a person need? Who cares how much the TV costs if we are unemployed or underemployed? Bread and circuses.

- Yes, some professions are doing OK. And many are in the public sector. The video has a cop as an example. Sure, he gets great pay (especially factoring in overtime) and the best benefits in the world. He can easily afford a boat. Do we want to be measured by our public sector workers? That didn't work out well in the long run for the Soviet Union.

[Brian4Liberty]

Who are the rich? Are they getting richer? You probably need at least $10 million to truly be rich in this country. Is Lloyd Blankfein getting richer? Yes. Are many "higher ups" in the government/Wall St. financial sector rich and getting richer? Absolutely. Is it at the expense of the taxpayer? Yes.

[erowe1]

- Our toys are what defines us? Cell phones and boats? Yes, the price of cell phones has come down for obvious reasons. Who cares? A cell phone makes us so much better off? Who cares if the cost of the TV drops in half and doubles in size? How many TVs does a person need? Who cares how much the TV costs if we are unemployed or underemployed? Bread and circuses.


Those things may not be what define us. But they're still wealth. The question wasn't whether the poor are getting worse off in some existential sense, it was whether they're getting poorer, which means are they getting worse off in the sense of having material stuff (e.g. toys). To that question, the answer is an unequivocal no. They're not getting poorer, they're getting richer.

[Travlyr]

It all depends on what is meant by poor.

Few people in America must go to bed hungry and cold in the 21st century, so far, yet that has more to do with technological advances than opportunity. Most houses, prior to 1970, were not well insulated and the windows were single pane. Now when one goes inside a modern building, he/she is better protected from the harsh elements. Food technology has progressed as well.

However, compare opportunity to succeed today to those of 1900. Early last century, entrepreneurs and innovators could discover/invent/produce and move up in society due to diligent perseverance. Today, established businesses are protected from competition by high start-up costs of business license, professional license, insurance, government regulations, and on and on. It is simply too burdensome to start a business today unless you are well connected to the elite.

While most poor in America today are not starving, in real terms only the very wealthy are doing better today than 100 years ago.

[jclay2]

How about this. We are all worse off, including the rich. Of course there are a few rich people who exploit the rest of us through government handouts, but on average the group of rich people is worse off with the high levels of taxation and government. And certainly the same is true for the poor.

[charrob]

YouTube - The Punk Patriot Fixes The USA Economy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m_fNl1aZ0E)

[Stary Hickory]

It's more like the dishonest are getting wealthier while the honest folks are getting poorer. The government is the one who empowers the dishonest and aids the corruption. What little wealth is left for the poor is courtesy of what little free marker we have left.

[rckt24]

A good example of standard of living going down is two members of the household working today to achieve the same standard of living as one person working back in the 70s. and they didn't have to go into massive debt to buy houses, cars, pay for tuition, etc. back then

[Brian4Liberty]

A good example of standard of living going down is two members of the household working today to achieve the same standard of living as one person working back in the 70s. and they didn't have to go into massive debt to buy houses, cars, pay for tuition, etc. back then

Exactly.

[Brian4Liberty]

YouTube - The Punk Patriot Fixes The USA Economy

Some interesting points, yet still a Keynesian Socialist. "Welfare" is good because it spurs consumer spending? Hmmm...

[LibForestPaul]

Those things may not be what define us. But they're still wealth. The question wasn't whether the poor are getting worse off in some existential sense, it was whether they're getting poorer, which means are they getting worse off in the sense of having material stuff (e.g. toys). To that question, the answer is an unequivocal no. They're not getting poorer, they're getting richer.

Yes, the poors health care cost is going down. Thier tuition is going down. Their housing costs are going down. And their wages are certainly keeping pace with energy costs.

LOL

Yes the poor's pieces of pie are getting bigger and bigger.

[anaconda]

What data?

I thought this was a no brainer about the divergence of the real wage between the lower classes and upper classes. The real wages for all classes once moved up together. Then they began to diverge. Here's one link I found in just a few seconds time:

http://thedepression.org.au/?p=1802

Maybe I'm wrong..