Income Inequality is Overstated
From today's NY Times, George Mason economist Tyler Cowen explains why income inequality is overstated:
"While there is little doubt that the gap between the wealthy and everybody else has widened in recent years, the situation is not as unfair as some of the numbers seem to imply.
Much of the measured growth in income inequality has resulted from natural demographic trends. Furthermore, more-educated groups show greater income inequality than less-educated groups.
What matters most is how well people are doing in absolute terms. We should continue to improve opportunities for lower-income people, but inequality as a major and chronic American problem has been overstated."
3 Comments:
Income inequality is essential to progress. If you want to do better than you are doing (however you define that), then there has to be somewhere better to go.
“Somewhere better to go places” are limited and competition is fierce for us so called middle class.
I believe that the availability of "somewhere better to go" has more to do with personal choices than limited opportunities. Many people to have had to change companies, move to other states or countries, get MBA degrees, and accept less personal/family time to find the "somewhere better". People often decide these new opportunities are not worth the sacrifices because of family ties, spouses jobs...etc. That's OK...but it still comes back to personal choice.
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