Just a quick note here. Lots of people today, especially the media, are making a big deal out of Jeff Bezos and his wife's donation of $33 million for a scholarship fund for DACA Dreamers. For example there's this CNN article. Lots of tweets. It's a nice gesture. It's definitely a worthy cause - although … Continue reading Innumeracy and Generosity – Don’t be deceived by big numbers
Demographics/Income Distribution
Data and Visualization Resources for Incomes and Inequality
Posting links to two incredibly useful resources for students and people doing research on incomes, income distribution, and income inequality. These resources are useful for both historical data and visualizations as well as cross-country comparisons. The first is the World Top Incomes Database from the Paris School of Economics. Many thanks to the Paris School … Continue reading Data and Visualization Resources for Incomes and Inequality
Busting the Medicare Myths – Presentation
I gave a presentation today to the Michigan Intergenerational Network at Madonna University on the economic prospects of Medicare (U.S.). Thanks to the Madonna Univ. Gerontology Department for support and assistance. For a downloadable and viewable copy of the presentation, see: https://jimluke.com/course-resources/presentations/busting-myths-about-medicare/.
Understanding The Social Security Trust Fund – It’s More A Checking Account and Less of A Trust Fund
Now that the Republican-Democratic budgetary battle that shut down much of the U.S. government earlier this month has been resolved delayed for 3 months. Once again the hope of the politicians from both sides is to achieve some kind of "grand bargain" on the budget that continues to reduce the federal budget deficit. Now the … Continue reading Understanding The Social Security Trust Fund – It’s More A Checking Account and Less of A Trust Fund
Taxes, Incentives, and Being Poor
Now Updated with proofreading! Political debates about taxes and tax rates in the U.S. often focus on the rich and claims about the incentive effects of different tax rates. Rarely mentioned these days are the poor. Indeed, the Republican demands in the last few years that tax rates should be cut for the high-income rich … Continue reading Taxes, Incentives, and Being Poor
Student Debt + Stagnant Real Wages = Colleges Need to Focus On Student Success
Today's post is an excerpt of something I wrote for another site. This year, in addition to my teaching duties at the college, I'm leading a project to update our college strategic plan. As part of that project I'm writing and editing a series of "briefing papers" (long blog posts, actually) about issues of strategic … Continue reading Student Debt + Stagnant Real Wages = Colleges Need to Focus On Student Success
The Top 0.1% Vs. Rest of Us Throughout the 20th Century
Following up on yesterday's post about the Global Top Incomes Database, I thought I'd give an example. Here's what I created: So what are we looking at? The blue line shows almost a century of the average income of the bottom 90% of American earners (in constant, real 2008 dollars - scale on right side). … Continue reading The Top 0.1% Vs. Rest of Us Throughout the 20th Century
Awesome Resource – The World Top Incomes Database
Any student, researcher, or #OWS protestor interested in income distribution and income growth should definitely be aware of this resource: The World's Top Incomes Database. (hat tip to Krugman, from whom I learned about it). It's a very powerful database combined with a very easy to use interface that allows you to extract exactly the … Continue reading Awesome Resource – The World Top Incomes Database
Quickie – Some Graphs
I'll be talking tomorrow to a bunch of students about income distribution, student loans, and other things of interest to the #OWS crowd. These are some graphs I've collected from other sources that I'll use. No time to write much analysis today. It's mostly just the graphs. From Paul Krugman: The true age of spectacular … Continue reading Quickie – Some Graphs
Income Inequality Does Matter And It Makes Us Worse Off
There is viewpoint that asserts that income inequality and wealth inequality are necessary, that they are the differences that motivate people to work and get ahead. This viewpoint often implies that without wide income disparities that our economy's growth would slow. Supporters of such a viewpoint seem to suggest that the only choices we have … Continue reading Income Inequality Does Matter And It Makes Us Worse Off
EconProph 