Josh Rauh on The Complex Reality of Income Inequality in America | Ch.1 | HISPBC

The common media narrative claims economic inequality is exploding to new highs and the wealthiest Americans don’t pay their fair share in taxes. This claim relies on flawed and incomplete data. The full research paints an altogether different picture and reveals that government social programs and the US tax policy have effectively restrained the perceived rise in inequality.
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Chapter 1 - • Josh Rauh on The Compl...
Chapter 2 - • Josh Rauh on The Impac...
Chapter 3 - • Josh Rauh on The Laffe...
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[@jamesward6954]

This was a fun exercise, but it seems the focus on income inequality, rather than wealth inequality, misses the full picture.
The ultra-wealthy are generally not making most of their money through their labor, but rather by owning assets whose value increases over time. None of that counts as income until they liquidate or receive dividends, and then it's taxed at the capital gains rate, which is lower than the ordinary income rate. This also opens the door to tricks like using those assets as collateral for loans to fund their living expenses without actually declaring any income. I would be interested to see what percentage of the top 1% income tax burden falls on those with a high income to wealth ratio (for example, a doctor earning $600k per year who had to take on a lot of debt and weather a lot of lower income years to get to that point) compared to a multi-billionaire earning many millions per year in unrealized capital appreciation. Our current system seems somewhat punishing to the former while being pretty unfairly favorable for the latter.
Wealth data is probably a lot harder to get your hands on, because there's no one-stop IRS database for it, but it doesn't seem to me that you can tell the full story without it.

[@ScottKern-n4f]

He presumed that "total federal taxes" does not include corporate income tax, nor tariffs, nor excise taxes, nor fees, .....a worthless test of vagaries going on here.

[@paultaylor7947]

You know that song by Bob Seger and the silver bullet band. When we drove for miles along that Californian coast and those hollywood nights and those bright city lights .It should now be as long as I can afford the fuel costs and it might not be looking so right when describing the visibility distance. Like those big city lights might not be so bright more like gaslight city nights and the shoreline might not be looking so stunning now 8:17

[@sotomarkou9588]

It's not complex, it's made up through regulation, for the benefit of the few.

[@Mr.Witness]

You are in fact all socialist… the irony is ridiculous!