Rhetoric matters in economic policy debates. Would allowing people to purchase health insurance from the federal government be a public option, a government plan, or a public plan? Would investment accounts in Social Security be private accounts, personal accounts, or individual accounts? (See my post on the rule of three.) Are tax breaks really tax cuts or [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Income’
A Great Introduction to Economic Inequality
Posted in Economy, Taxes, tagged Income, Inequality on December 14, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Over at the Browser, Sophie Roell interviews MIT economist Daron Acemoglu on the economics of inequality. In the course of discussing five books on the topic (one of which is actually a research paper), Acemoglu hits many of the high points — technology, skills, and education; the increase in income at the tippy-top of the [...]
Why Do Half of Americans Pay No Federal Income Tax?
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Budget, Income, Politics, Taxes on July 27, 2011 | 93 Comments »
You may have heard the claim that about half of Americans pay no federal income tax. That’s a true fact. My Tax Policy Center colleagues estimate, for example, that 46% of households either will pay no federal income tax in 2011 or will receive more from the IRS than they pay in. Today, TPC released a new study that [...]
State and Local Pay vs. Private Pay
Posted in Budget, Microeconomics, tagged Budget, Income, jobs, States on March 7, 2011 | 4 Comments »
Do state and local workers get paid more or less than their private sector counterparts? That old question has taken on renewed life with the budget and labor disputes raging in Wisconsin and other states. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy question to answer. As Ford Fessenden notes in a nice set of graphics at the New York Times,one reason [...]
The Changing Distribution of Worker Earnings
Posted in Data, Economy, tagged CBO, Earnings, Income, Wages on October 4, 2009 | 4 Comments »
On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office released a new study examining how worker earnings changed from 1979 through 2007. The report is full of important facts about the evolution of earnings throughout the earnings distribution and, in particular, among the highest earners. For example, the following chart illustrates how the earnings of men and women [...]
Health Insurance and Labor Markets
Posted in Economy, Health, Macroeconomics, tagged Budget, CBO, Health, Income, jobs, Macroeconomics, unemployment on July 14, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Health insurance is not just a health issue. It’s also a jobs issue. Why? Because about 60% of non-elderly Americans get their health insurance through an employer or a labor union. As a result, health insurance and employment are closely related. As lawmakers consider changes to our system of health insurance, they should therefore keep an eye [...]
House Prices and Productivity
Posted in Economy, Macroeconomics, tagged GDP, Housing, Income, Macroeconomics, Productivity on July 13, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Many economists, myself included, refer to the recent boom and bust in house prices as a bubble, whose foundation lay in a combination of credit market excesses and human imperfections. Fundamentals certainly played a role as well, but bubble forces were particularly important. In a short paper recently published by the New York Federal Reserve, Jim [...]
Competitiveness & Health Reform
Posted in Budget, Health, International, Macroeconomics, tagged Budget, CBO, Health, Income, jobs, Macroeconomics on June 17, 2009 | 3 Comments »
This morning, the Wall Street Journal editorial page questioned the oft-alleged link between health care costs and the competitiveness of American business. Echoing Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer, it referred to that argument as “schlock.” At the same time, everyone interested in health policy is still absorbing the trillion-dollar price tag that the [...]
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