- Aug 2023
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robertreich.substack.com robertreich.substack.com
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https://robertreich.substack.com/p/welcome-to-my-class
Robert Reich course “Wealth and Poverty” 2023
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- Sep 2022
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Consider another example—education. It is true that in most countries, asin the United States, a higher level of educational attainment is typically as-sociated with a lower risk of economic insecurity. But the penalties associatedwith low levels of educational attainment, and the rewards associated with highlevels of attainment, vary significantly by country. Full-time workers without ahigh school degree in Finland, for instance, report the same earnings as thosewith a high school degree. In the United States, however, these workers ex-perience a 24 percent earnings penalty for not completing high school.23 InNorway, a college degree yields only a 20 percent earnings increase over a highschool degree for full-time workers, versus a much higher 68 percent increase inthe United States.24 The percentage of those with a high school degree earningat or below the poverty threshold is more than 4 times higher in the UnitedStates than in Belgium.25
The US penalizes those who don't complete high school to a higher degree than other countries and this can tend to lower our economic resiliency.
American exceptionalism at play?
Another factor at play with respect to https://hypothes.is/a/2uAmuEENEe2KentYKORSww
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Income inequality refers to how wide or narrow the overall distribution of an-nual income is.5
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- Jun 2022
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Local file Local file
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Between 1914 and 1980, inequalities in income and wealth decreasedmarkedly in the Western world as a whole (the United Kingdom,Germany, France, Sweden, and the United States), and in Japan,Russia, China, and India, although in different ways, which we willexplore in a later chapter. Here we will focus on the Western countriesand improve our understanding of how this “great redistribution”took place.
Inequalities in income and wealth decreased markedly in the West from 1914 to 1980 due to a number of factors including:<br /> - Two World Wars and the Great Depression dramatically overturned the power relationships between labor and capital<br /> - A progressive tax on income and inheritance reduced the concentration of wealth and helped increase mobility<br /> - Liquidation of foreign and colonial assets as well as dissolution of public debt
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- Jan 2022
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www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
And this was from 2012... I wonder how much worse it is today?
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URL
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www.politico.com www.politico.com
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Biden officials now fear booster programs will limit global vaccine supply. (n.d.). POLITICO. Retrieved 3 January 2022, from https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/31/biden-novavax-production-covid-omicron-526283
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- Dec 2021
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learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos.content.blackboardcdn.com learn-us-east-1-prod-fleet01-xythos.content.blackboardcdn.com
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After all, imagine we framed the problem differently, the way itmight have been fifty or 100 years ago: as the concentration ofcapital, or oligopoly, or class power. Compared to any of these, aword like ‘inequality’ sounds like it’s practically designed toencourage half-measures and compromise. It’s possible to imagineoverthrowing capitalism or breaking the power of the state, but it’snot clear what eliminating inequality would even mean. (Which kindof inequality? Wealth? Opportunity? Exactly how equal would peoplehave to be in order for us to be able to say we’ve ‘eliminatedinequality’?) The term ‘inequality’ is a way of framing social problemsappropriate to an age of technocratic reformers, who assume fromthe outset that no real vision of social transformation is even on thetable.
A major problem with fighting to "level the playing field" and removing "inequality" is that it doesn't have a concrete feel. What exactly would it mean to eliminate inequality? What measures would one implement? To fix such a problem the issue needs to be better defined. How can the issue be better framed so that it could be fought for or against?
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- Nov 2021
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twitter.com twitter.com
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BK Titanji #ILookLikeAScientist. (2021, November 2). I simply can’t get over this graph @FT https://t.co/Uozp7yBs9n [Tweet]. @Boghuma. https://twitter.com/Boghuma/status/1455493059534376963
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- Jul 2021
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www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com
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In our case, a system intended to expand equality has become an enforcer of inequality. Americans are now meritocrats by birth. We know this, but because it violates our fundamental beliefs, we go to a lot of trouble not to know it.
Class stratification helps to create not only racist policies but policies that enforce the economic stratification and prevent upward (or downward) mobility.
I believe downward mobility is much simpler for Black Americans (find reference to OTM podcast about Obama to back this up).
How can we create social valves (similar to those in the circulatory system of our legs) that help to push people up and maintain them at certain levels without disadvantaging those who are still at the bottom and who may neither want to move up nor have the ability?
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- Jun 2021
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The impact of this exclusion itself is impossible to measure, but increasing meritocratic inequality has coincided with the opioid epidemic, a sharp increase in “deaths of despair,” and an unprecedented fall in life expectancy concentrated in poor and middle-class communities.
Are these all actually related to meritocratic inequality? What other drivers might there be?
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Meritocratic inequality works like this: First, elite workers acquire super-skilled jobs, displacing middle-class labor from the center of economic production. Then, those elite workers use their massive incomes to monopolize elite education for their children, ensuring that their offspring are more qualified to dominate high-skilled industries than their middle-class counterparts. The cycle continues, generating what Markovits calls “snowball inequality”: a compounding feedback loop that amplifies economic inequality, dramatically suppresses social mobility, and creates a “time divide” between an elite class whose members work longer and longer (due to a higher demand for their talents) and an increasingly idle middle class (whose work has been made redundant).
This all seems logical and certainly plays a part, but I still think it's more complicated. This is a feedback "engine" that has been installed since ~1970 and exacerbated by the 1980s.
There's likely still a leisure class above this compounding the effects.
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Some argue that the American elite is functionally an old-fashioned aristocracy that owes its income to nepotism and opportunism. Others argue that the elite is functionally an oligarchy that owes its rising income to a shift away from labor and toward capital. According to this view, elites don’t even need nepotism — they are using preexisting wealth and inheritance to rebuild an old-fashioned feudal class.
So much here to unpack...
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- May 2021
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www.nature.com www.nature.com
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Maxmen, A. (2021). Will COVID force public health to confront America’s epic inequality?. Nature, 592(7856), 674-680.
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- inequality
- healthcare
- California
- health
- income inequality
- poverty
- COVID-19 Equity Project
- prediction
- immigration
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- CDC
- USA
- public health
- is:article
- government
- intervention
- agriculture
- research
- mortality
- economy
- health disparity
- essential worker
- life expectancy
- wage gap
- lang:en
- agricultural worker
- COVID-19
Annotators
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www.sciencedirect.com www.sciencedirect.com
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Elgar, F. J., Stefaniak, A., & Wohl, M. J. A. (2020). The trouble with trust: Time-series analysis of social capital, income inequality, and COVID-19 deaths in 84 countries. Social Science & Medicine, 263, 113365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113365
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- Mar 2021
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zcomm.org zcomm.org
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Preliminary results from the first year are tantalizing for anyone interested in solutions to address rising inequality in the United States, especially as they manifest along racial and gender lines. Within the first year, the study’s participants obtained jobs at twice the rate of the control group. At the beginning of the study, 28 percent of the participants had full-time employment, and after the first year, that number rose to 40 percent.
This is what happened when 125 participants were given $500/month over two years to see what would happen.
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twitter.com twitter.com
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CEDI_IIEC_UNAM [@Bibliotecaiiec] [2021-03-04] COVID-19 and global income inequality / by Angus Deaton. © Princeton University https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/international_income_inequality_and_the_covid_v2_assembled_0.pdf. (Tweet] Twitter. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/Bibliotecaiiec/status/1353143277625733121.
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Alfani, G. (2020, October 15). Pandemics and inequality: A historical overview. VoxEU.Org. https://voxeu.org/article/pandemics-and-inequality-historical-overview
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- Feb 2021
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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“In the last decade, especially with the pioneering work of Thomas Piketty and his co-authors, there has been a growing consensus that tax cuts for the rich lead to higher income inequality,” Hope and Limberg said.
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www.washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com
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Even worse, Shadow Stat's numbers show so much inflation the past 25 years that, as Jim Pethokoukis points out, it implies the economy hasn't grown at all during that time.
Important Point
Real economic numbers validate a 25 year period (or more) of manipulated inflation and low growth economy. INCOME INEQUALITY statistics and recent studies ALL validate fuzzy math, rosy picture for the 1% and stagnant dismal picture for average Americans. Trump based his entire campaign and Presidency on Making America Great Again
Supporting Link
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So which seems likelier: that we're no better off than we were a quarter century ago, or that Shadow Stats is total bunk?
Great Question
This is an easy question to answer from my perspective. For me (age 62) and most of my peers, their kids and their peers, we are NO better off than we were a quarter century ago! A large part is the change from Industrial/Manufacturing to Technology and the outsourced labor and manufacturing. America has changed, this is FACT
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- Dec 2020
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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wealth persist across racial groups.
EXAMINE THE SYSTEMS WHICH HELP TO ENFORCE THIS RACIAL INCOME DIVIDE! Most relate. Fixing these systems could help to bridge the income gap between racial groups. Even laws so ingrained in us.
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- Oct 2020
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covid-19.iza.org covid-19.iza.org
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COVID-19 and the Labor Market. (n.d.). IZA – Institute of Labor Economics. Retrieved October 11, 2020, from https://covid-19.iza.org/publications/dp13625/
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www.core-econ.org www.core-econ.org
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James Bronterre O’Brien, told the people:‘Knaves will tell you that it is because you have no property, you are unrepresented. I tell you on the contrary, it is because you are unrepresented that you have no property …’16
great quote
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A thousand years ago, the world was flat, economically speaking.
I don't think we have to go back even this far. If I recall correctly, even 150 years ago the vast majority of the world's population were subsistence farmers. It's only been since the 20th century and the increasing spread of the industrial revolution that the situation has changed:
Even England remained primarily an agrarian country like all tributary societies for the previous 4,000 years, with ca. 50 percent of its population employed in agriculture as late as 1759.
--David Christian, Maps of Time (pp 401) quoting from Crafts, British Economic Growth, pp. 13–14. (See also Fig 13.1 Global Industrial Potential from the same, for a graphical indicator.
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Piketty, however, sees inequality as a social phenomenon, driven by human institutions. Institutional change, in turn, reflects the ideology that dominates society: “Inequality is neither economic nor technological; it is ideological and political.”
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For Piketty, rising inequality is at root a political phenomenon. The social-democratic framework that made Western societies relatively equal for a couple of generations after World War II, he argues, was dismantled, not out of necessity, but because of the rise of a “neo-proprietarian” ideology. Indeed, this is a view shared by many, though not all, economists. These days, attributing inequality mainly to the ineluctable forces of technology and globalization is out of fashion, and there is much more emphasis on factors like the decline of unions, which has a lot to do with political decisions.
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unequalscenes.com unequalscenes.com
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This is an interesting website for the extreme contrasts it brings out with regard to income inequality.
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- Sep 2020
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news.northeastern.edu news.northeastern.edu
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If rich countries monopolize COVID-19 vaccines, it could cause twice as many deaths as distributing them equally. (n.d.). Retrieved September 17, 2020, from https://news.northeastern.edu/2020/09/14/if-rich-countries-monopolize-covid-19-vaccines-it-could-cause-twice-as-many-deaths-as-distributing-them-equally/
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- Aug 2020
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www.nber.org www.nber.org
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Chiou, L., & Tucker, C. (2020). Social Distancing, Internet Access and Inequality (Working Paper No. 26982; Working Paper Series). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w26982
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covid-19.iza.org covid-19.iza.org
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Unequal Consequences of COVID-19 across Age and Income: Representative Evidence from Six Countries. COVID-19 and the Labor Market. (n.d.). IZA – Institute of Labor Economics. Retrieved August 5, 2020, from https://covid-19.iza.org/publications/dp13366/
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www.cbc.ca www.cbc.ca
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Jul 30, J. C. · P., & July 31, 2020 1:50 PM ET | Last Updated: (2020, July 30). Black people and other people of colour make up 83% of reported COVID-19 cases in Toronto | CBC News. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-covid-19-data-1.5669091
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- Jul 2020
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osf.io osf.io
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Mishra, S. V. (2020). COVID-19, online teaching, and deepening digital divide in India [Preprint]. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/wzrak
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- Jun 2020
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digest.bps.org.uk digest.bps.org.uk
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Warren, M. (2020, June 16). Why Are We So Quick To Scrutinise How Low-Income Families Spend Their Money?. Research Digest. https://digest.bps.org.uk/2020/06/16/why-are-we-so-quick-to-scrutinise-how-low-income-families-spend-their-money/
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read.oecd-ilibrary.org read.oecd-ilibrary.org
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Youth and COVID 19: Response, Recovery and Resilience—OECD. (n.d.). Retrieved June 17, 2020, from https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/view/?ref=134_134356-ud5kox3g26&title=Youth-and-COVID-19-Response-Recovery-and-Resilience
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www.ifs.org.uk www.ifs.org.uk
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Andrew, A., Cattan, S., Dias, M. C., Farquharson, C., Kraftman, L., Krutikova, S., Phimister, A., & Sevilla, A. (2020, May 18). Learning during the lockdown: Real-time data on children’s experiences during home learning. https://doi.org/10.1920/BN.IFS.2020.BN0288
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behavioralscientist.org behavioralscientist.org
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We Have a Rare Opportunity to Create a Stronger, More Equitable Society. (2020, June 1). Behavioral Scientist. https://behavioralscientist.org/we-have-a-rare-opportunity-to-create-a-stronger-more-equitable-society/
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- May 2020
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psyarxiv.com psyarxiv.com
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Branas-Garza, P., Caldentey, P., Espin, A. M., García, T., & Román, A. H. (2020). Exposure to economic inequality at the age of 8 enhances prosocial behavior in adult life [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/nkz5a
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psyarxiv.com psyarxiv.com
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Du, H., Chen, A., Chi, P., & King, R. B. (2020, May 7). Income Inequality Reduces Civic Honesty. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/upm47
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- Sep 2017
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Part of the wild success of the Silicon Valley giants of today — and what makes their stocks so appealing to investors — has come from their ability to attain huge revenue and profits with relatively few workers.Apple, Alphabet (parent of Google) and Facebook generated $333 billion of revenue combined last year with 205,000 employees worldwide. In 1993, three of the most successful, technologically oriented companies based in the Northeast — Kodak, IBM and AT&T — needed more than three times as many employees, 675,000, to generate 27 percent less in inflation-adjusted revenue.The 10 most valuable tech companies have 1.5 million employees, according to calculations by Michael Mandel of the Progressive Policy Institute, compared with 2.2 million employed by the 10 biggest industrial companies in 1979. Mr. Mandel, however, notes that today’s tech industry is adding jobs much faster than the industrial companies, which took many decades to reach that scale.
It seems like this would certainly contribute to wealth inequality, since the majority of today's tech workforce is more well-educated than the industrial employees of decades past (who then shared in their employer's rise).
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