Income distribution

December 28, 2016

5 victims of the $15 minimum wage

As protests for a $15-per-hour minimum wage continue to rage across the country, cities like Seattle and states like California and New York have already begun to adopt such schemes. Continue Reading...

December 20, 2016

What you should know about wage subsidies

Note: This is post #14 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. What’s the difference between a wage subsidy and a minimum wage? What is the cost of a wage subsidy to taxpayers? Continue Reading...

October 31, 2016

Do the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes?

During her presidential campaign, Sec. Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said she’d implement a tax system in which the wealthy “pay their fair share in taxes.” Expecting the rich to pay what is “fair” is not asking to much of them. Continue Reading...

September 14, 2016

The most surprising fact about American poverty

Every year, the U.S. Census comes out with its report on incomes and poverty. And every year the same finding repeatedly surprises me. As economist David Henderson says, the report “always shows that there is mobility between income categories, even in the short run, and that poverty is temporary for most people in America who experience it. Continue Reading...

September 14, 2016

7 Figures: Income and poverty in the U.S.

Yesterday the U.S. Census Bureau released its latest report on income and poverty in the United States. Here are seven figures from the report you should know about: 1. Real median household income increased 5.2 percent between 2014 and 2015—from $53,700 to $56,500. Continue Reading...

April 15, 2016

A Policy Solution to Fix Inequality and Boost GDP

Andrew Biggs of AEI has a piece up today at Forbes addressing the gender pay gap and provides a neat solution: “forbid women from staying at home with their children.” As Biggs points out, such a policy would address perhaps the greatest root cause of gender pay inequality: varied work experience attributable to choices women make. Continue Reading...

April 07, 2016

Minimum Wage Advocates: ‘Sure a $15 Wage Will Increase Unemployment. So What?’

In almost every long-term clash over a cultural or political policy, there comes a point that I’d call the “comfort-level concession.” If the agenda of one side has been won — or has at least moved sufficiently toward achieving victory — the winning side often feels comfortable making concessions about claims that they may have previously denied. Continue Reading...

December 29, 2015

Why Does the New York Times Want to Hurt the Poor?

While it may be difficult to imagine, there was once an era when the New York Times was concerned about the poor. Consider, for example, a 1987 editorial they ran with the headline, “The Right Minimum Wage: $0.00.” Continue Reading...

December 14, 2015

Why Poverty Figures Can Be Misleading

What if told you that between 90-100 percent of Americans are living in “healthcare poverty.” You would probably object and say that while the country certainly has a healthcare crisis, my numbers are surely inflated. Continue Reading...

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