Inequality and the New York subway. An infographic
from the New Yorker:
The United States has a problem with income inequality. And it’s particularly bad in New York City—according to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, if the borough of Manhattan were a country, the income gap between the richest twenty per cent and the poorest twenty per cent would be on par with countries like Sierra Leone, Namibia, and Lesotho.
posted by nickyskye
on Apr 16, 2013 -
69 comments
The African King With A Multi-Billion Dollar Empire RBH functions as a communitybased investment company whose primary investment aim is to generate the income required for the funding of sustainable projects. Income generated from RBH’s commercial interests is invested in infrastructural development, as well as in the members of the Nation itself. Over the past decade, more than R4 billion ($475 million) has been spent on roads, utilities, schools, clinics and other public amenities. This has benefited not only the Bafokeng, but other people living in the North West Province of South Africa, the area which the RBN calls home.
posted by infini
on Dec 1, 2012 -
5 comments
From the mid 40s to the mid 50s
Coronet Instructional Films were always ready to provide social guidance for teenagers on subjects as diverse as
dating,
popularity,
preparing for being drafted, and
shyness, as well as to children on
following the law,
the value of quietness in school, and
appreciating our parents. They also provided education on topics such as the connection between
attitudes and health,
what kind of people live in America,
how to keep a job,
supervising women workers,
the nature of capitalism, and
the plantation System in Southern life. Inside is an annotated collection of all 86 of the complete Coronet films in the
Prelinger Archives as well as a few more. Its not like you had work to do or anything right?
[more inside]
posted by Blasdelb
on Nov 1, 2012 -
41 comments
Education, Income, and Fertility in America, and What They Mean for the Future of the Country "Since the average American woman has 2.1 children, you might think we aren't experiencing a national fertility crisis. Unlike some European countries whose futures are threatened by low birth rates, Americans, on average, produce just the right number of future workers, soldiers, and taxpayers to keep our society humming... Two new studies bring the contrasting reproductive profiles of rich and poor women into sharp relief. One,
from the Guttmacher Institute, shows that the rates of unplanned pregnancies and births among poor women now dwarf the fertility rates of wealthier women, and finds that the gap between the two groups has widened significantly over the past five years. The other,
by the Center for Work-Life Policy, documents rates of childlessness among corporate professional women that are higher than the childlessness rates of some European countries experiencing fertility crises."
posted by bookman117
on Jul 25, 2012 -
102 comments
How Private Is 'Private Charity'? Private charity may be
more accurately described as "private donations coupled with involuntary, tax-financed public subsidies." And
it's not fair: "very low-income people paying only payroll taxes get hardly any leverage for their donations. Very high-income people in states with high income-tax rates – such as New Jersey and New York – can through the tax code virtually double the money funneled to a charity per dollar of their own sacrifice." (
previously)
posted by kliuless
on Jan 17, 2011 -
39 comments
Does a better education really lead to a higher income? Take a map of the USA, overlay census data for high school graduation rates (red), college graduate rates (yellow) and median household income (blue). What do you get?
A patchwork map of purples, blues, pinks and greens, that shows the relationship between education and income by county.
[more inside]
posted by Joh
on Jan 14, 2011 -
61 comments
"We infer that beyond about $75,000/y, there is no improvement whatever in any of the three measures of emotional well-being." Two social scientists at Princeton,
Angus Deaton and Nobelist
Daniel Kahneman, have a new paper in PNAS about money and the determinants of happiness. Increased income above $75,000 is not associated with higher subjective happiness, though it is associated with superior scores on measures of overall life satisfaction. Other tidbits: "Religion has a substantial influence on improving positive affect and reducing reports of stress, but no effect on reducing sadness or worry... The presence of children at home is associated with significant increases in stress, sadness, and worry."
posted by escabeche
on Sep 8, 2010 -
49 comments
Who rules America? Wealth, income and power Next time you hear "Fair and Balanced" Fox News whining about the socialist wealth redistribution agenda of the Obama "regime", refer back to this. Goes a long way towards explaining why 47% of Americans don't pay income tax.
posted by Daddy-O
on Apr 15, 2010 -
61 comments
TheDataWeb - a network of online data libraries on topics including census data, economic data, health data, income and unemployment data, population data, labor data, cancer data, crime and transportation data, family dynamics, vital statistics data
posted by Gyan
on Dec 26, 2007 -
10 comments
This map displays county-to-county migration data for 2000-2005 from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. In, out, staying put, median household income.
[via]
posted by tellurian
on Aug 16, 2007 -
19 comments
Scraping By on $150K a Year
My heart bleeds for people who earn a six figure income but are still dirt poor. In a
skewed distribution model with the median income ($43,000 in 2002) being in Salina, Kansas and moving a mile east or west for each $1000 above or below that median, the Bush's would be four states away in Columbus, Ohio and the average CEO would be in....Kabul, Afghanistan. The top 400 incomes would be three quarters of the way to the moon. From a 2003
article at Alternet so they're probably beyond the moon now and on their way to Mars. From 1979 to 1997, the average annual income of the top 1% (after taxes) increased by 157% (or $414,000) while the poorest 20% went down by $100.
posted by fenriq
on Dec 16, 2006 -
68 comments
How the other half top quintile lives... Coldwell Banker has released the first
Coldwell Banker(R) Luxury Index, a "study conducted in August 2004 of U.S. luxury homeowners -- those owning homes valued at $1 million or more -- concerning their attitudes, preferences and purchasing behavior related to luxury goods and services." You might be interested to discover that 61% of those surveyed stated recent increases in interest rates would have no impact on their luxury item purchases.
posted by Irontom
on Nov 16, 2004 -
8 comments
Consider the scorecard. During Clinton's two terms, the median income for American families increased by a solid 15% after inflation, according to Census Bureau figures. But it rose even faster for African Americans (33%) and Hispanics (24%) than it did for whites (14%). The growth was so widely shared that from 1993 through 1999, families in the bottom fifth of the income distribution saw their incomes increase faster than those in the top 5%. By comparison, under President Reagan in the 1980s, those in the top 5% increased their income more than five times faster than the bottom 20%. Likewise, the poverty rate under Clinton fell 25%, the biggest eight-year decline since the 1960s. It fell even faster for particularly vulnerable groups like blacks, Hispanics and children. Again the contrast with Reagan is striking. During Reagan's two terms, the number of Americans in poverty fell by just 77,000. During Clinton's two terms, the number of Americans in poverty plummeted by 8.1 million. The number of children in poverty fell by 50,000 under Reagan. Under Clinton the number was 4.1 million. That's a ratio of 80 to 1.
Clinton's Biggest Gains Not on Conservative Critics' Radar
posted by y2karl
on Jun 29, 2004 -
44 comments
the working poor A new book by Beth Shulman called The Betrayal of Work” argues that hard work is just not cutting it in America anymore. According to Shulman, even in the go-go ’90s one out of every four American workers made less than $8.70 an hour, an income equal to the government’s poverty level for a family of four. Many, if not most, of these workers have no health care, sick pay or retirement provisions.
more inside.....
posted by jbou
on Nov 30, 2003 -
52 comments
Arts degrees 'reduce earnings' A degree in an arts subject reduces average earnings to below those of someone who leaves school with just A-levels. Graduates in these subjects - including history and English - could expect to make between 2% and 10% less than those who quit education at 18
"Feeling warm about literature doesn't pay the rent."
posted by MintSauce
on Mar 6, 2003 -
62 comments
US income distribution moves towards 3rd world profile? -
US Census Bureau data on growing family income inequality, 1947 to 2001. Also see:
The
"L Curve" (for a graphic depiction of current US wealth distribution).
"The most egalitarian countries have a Gini index in the 20s. European
countries like Germany, Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Norway, and Sweden all fall in that
range, according to World Bank figures. Canada and Australia are just over 30. The United States
is around 40...Once inequality reaches 50 percent, disparities become glaringly obvious, to the
point where they undermine a society's sense of unity and common purpose....Sierra Leone takes
the prize. At 63 percent, it offers the world's most extreme example of inequality."
By multiple measures,
income
inequality in the US is rapidly increasing, and a substantial percentage of middle class Americans may be gradually
sliding into poverty..
posted by troutfishing
on Jan 15, 2003 -
137 comments
Cheney in Numbers. It's hard to spin hard cold numbers. Here's a few:
*Cheney's 2000 income from Halliburton: $36,086,635
Increase in government contracts while Cheney led Halliburton: 91%
*Minimum size of "accounting irregularity" that occurred while Cheney was CEO: $100,000,000 (One hundred MILLION dollars)
*Number of the seven official US "State Sponsors of Terror" that Halliburton contracted with: 2 out of 7
*Pages of Energy Plan documents Cheney refused to give congressional investigators: 13,500
*Amount energy companies gave the Bush/Cheney presidential campaign: $1,800,000
I
also loved this quote:
"Cheney and Bush want privacy for their conversations, but not for anyone else's." --Tony Mauro in USA Today, Feb. 27, 2002
posted by nofundy
on Jul 16, 2002 -
25 comments
"The Myth of Ownership." Financial Columnist Stephen Moore's review of a new book which claims that it is a "compelling fantasy that we earn our income and the government takes some of it away from us."
posted by Ty Webb
on Apr 24, 2002 -
28 comments
It's easy to think of lawyers as greedy, overpaid blood-sucking pigs. But do we have any clue
what lawyers earn? Yes we do, thanks to American Lawyer Media's (via law.com) annual roundup of lawyer compensation. Not all of which is surprising. For example, partners at the top corporate firms like Wachtell Lipton, or Cravath, Swaine & Moore or Davis Polk each averaged millions in 2001 ($3,285,000, $2,245,000 and $1,740,000, respectively). Even piddly little first year associates at those firms got $125,000 to start. (We're talking 24-year-old law school grads with precisely zero professional experience and know-how. Zero.) But most newbie lawyers don't win those jobs. Also difficult to land are entry-level positions at district attorneys' offices, but they're not nearly as lucrative. A junior Manhattan D.A. earned $45,000 last year (up from $42,000 in 2000). But locking up criminals beats toiling for civil rights at a not-for-profit like the New York Civil Liberties Union, which paid entry-level lawyers only $35,000 last year. Over all, best off are lawyers who work for big companies. Top counsel at IBM last year earned a measly $506,000 in cash (salary & bonus), but throw in stocks & options and his compensation totaled $7,795,613. Compared to that, you have to worry about the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court whose family in 2001 had to struggle along on $192,600.
posted by jellybuzz
on Feb 28, 2002 -
36 comments
