From the abstract:
New "governance" reforms entailing shifts toward privatization have permeated the public sector over the last decade, possibly affecting workplace-based attainments. We examine the consequences of this reform for African American men, who during the civil rights era reached relative parity with whites. We analyze race-based inequities on one socioeconomic outcome-downward occupational mobility-among professionals, managers and executives. Results from a Panel Study of Income Dynamics sample indicate that the "new government business model," characterized by increased employer discretion has disproportionately disadvantaged African Americans. Narrower racial gaps in the incidence, determinants and timing of downward mobility found in the public sector, relative to the private sector, during the pre-reform period (1985-90) eroded during the reform period (2002-07) because of widening racial gaps in the public sector.
From the abstract:
Gender gaps are pervasive in all walks of economic life and imply large losses in terms of foregone productivity and living standards to the individuals concerned and the economy. This new OECD report focuses on how best to close these gender gaps under four broad headings: 1) Gender equality, social norms and public policies; and gender equality in 2) education; 3) employment and 4) entrepreneurship.
Key policy messages are as follows:
- Greater gender equality in educational attainment has a strong positive effect on economic growth;
- Stereotyping needs to be addressed in educational choices at school from a young age. For example, adapt teaching strategies and material to increase engagement of boys in reading and of girls in maths and science; encourage more girls to follow science, engineering and maths courses in higher education and seek employment in these fields;
- Good and affordable childcare is a key factor for better gender equality in employment. But change also has to happen at home as the bulk of housework and caring is left to women in many countries. Policy can support such change, for example, through parental leave policies that explicitly include fathers.
- Support policies for women-owned enterprises need to target all existing firms, not just start-ups and small enterprises. Equal access to finance for male and female entrepreneurs needs to be assured.
See also:
- Press release
- Executive summary
Income tax rates are at the center of many recent policy debates over taxes. Some policymakers argue that raising tax rates, especially on higher income taxpayers, to increase tax revenues is part of the solution for long-term debt reduction. For example, in the 112th Congress the Senate passed the Middle Class Tax Cut (S. 3412), which would allow the 2001 and 2003 Bush-era tax cuts to expire for taxpayers with income over $250,000 ($200,000 for single taxpayers). Other policymakers argue that maintaining low tax rates is necessary to foster economic growth. For example, the House passed the Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of 2012 (H.R. 8), which would extend the 2001 and 2003 Bush-era tax cuts for one year. The Senate also considered legislation, the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012 (S. 2230), that would implement the so-called "Buffett rule" by raising the tax rate on high-income taxpayers...
...Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90%; today it is 35%. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25% in the 1950s and 1960s, 35% in the 1970s; today it is 15%. The real GDP growth rate averaged 4.2% and real per capita GDP increased annually by 2.4% in the 1950s. In the 2000s, the average real GDP growth rate was 1.7% and real per capita GDP increased annually by less than 1%. This analysis finds no conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year reduction in the top statutory tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data conducted for this report suggests the reduction in the top tax rates has had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. It is reasonable to assume that a tax rate change limited to a small group of taxpayers at the top of the income distribution would have a negligible effect on economic growth. For instance, the tax revenue projected from allowing the top tax rates to rise to their pre-2001 levels is $49 billion for 2013 or 0.3% of projected 2013 gross domestic product.
The top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. The share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% during to the 2007-2009 recession. During a portion of that time period, however, the share of the tax burden borne by top taxpayers increased. For instance, the top 0.1% of taxpayers paid 9.4% of all income taxes in 1996 and 11.8% in 2006, but their share of income paid in taxes decreased from 33% in 1996 to 25% in 2006....
]]>From the abstract:
The 2012/13 edition looks at the macroeconomic effects of wages, and in particular at how current trends are linked to equitable growth. The gap between wage growth and labour productivity growth is widening, the difference between the top and bottom earners is increasing, and the labour income share is declining.
These worrying changes affect the key components of aggregate demand - particularly consumption, investment and net exports - that are necessary for recovery and growth. The report looks at the reasons for these trends, which range from the increasing financial and trade globalization to advances in technology and the decline in union density.
The report calls for internal and external "rebalancing" to achieve more socially and economically sustainable outcomes within and across countries, proposing policy actions beyond labour markets and national borders.
See also:
Key Findings
Analysis
Each January, during our national commemorations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are reminded of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the freedom rides, the Birmingham campaign, the 1963 March on Washington, and the events in Selma. Little emphasis, however, is placed on Dr. King's commitment, expressed most explicitly at the end of his life, to securing human and economic rights for all people--African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and poor Whites. Perhaps we omit the latter because we prefer to embrace the mythical, symbolic Dr. King we have created, the "gentle, nonviolent martyr for civil rights," as opposed to the fierce freedom fighter that he was. Yet it bears remembering that Dr. King was a courageous man who was arrested dozens of times, who was stabbed by a mentally ill person, who was spied on by the FBI, and whose home was bombed. Despite these risks, he was outspoken and steadfast in his efforts to dismantle the racial hierarchy created by Jim Crow racism and the hierarchy of economic privilege created by an exploitative capitalist system. Perhaps we neglect the fullness and revolutionary nature of Dr. King's legacy during our celebrations because in our "feel good" society we prefer to focus on past success and progress as opposed to the hard work that remains to be done....
... In some ways, the Occupy Wall Street protesters resemble the civil rights activists of the 1950s and 1960s. Like them, the OWS protesters are mostly young--though some are older. They are also optimistic and are able to imagine this country as it ought to be, as opposed to as it is. Unfortunately, like the protesters of the 1960s, they have also been subject to crackdowns by law enforcement personnel and other governmental officials who are perhaps overly fearful and intolerant of civil unrest and disobedience. But while there may be similarities, in many ways, the OWS movement is different--and if not different, then curious--in at least two ways that merit greater reflection. ...
]]>The numbers reveal the deadening effects of inequality in our country, and confirm that tax avoidance, rather than a lack of middle-class initiative, is the cause.
1. Only three percent of the very rich are entrepreneurs....
2. Only four out of 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us....
3. An amount equal to one-half the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans...
4. Corporations stopped paying half of their taxes after the recession....
5. Just ten Americans made a total of fifty billion dollars in one year....
6. Tax deductions for the rich could pay off 100 percent of the deficit....
7. The average single black or Hispanic woman has about $100 in net worth....
8. Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 a day for food....
9. Young adults have lost two-thirds of their net worth since 1984....
10. The American public paid about four trillion dollars to bail out the banks...
Bonus for the super-rich: a quadrillion dollars in securities trading nets zero sales tax revenue for the U.S....
]]>This report presents earnings data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), a national monthly survey of approximately 60,000 households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Information on earnings is collected from one-fourth of the CPS sample each month. Readers should note that the comparisons of earnings in this report are on a broad level and do not control for many factors that can be significant in explaining earnings differences. For a detailed description of the source of the data and an explanation of the concepts and definitions used, see the accompanying technical note.
]]>From the press release:
The gaps between the incomes of the richest households and low- and middle-income households are wide and growing in most states, according to a major new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Economic Policy Institute that examines inequality at the state level. Across all states, the average income of the richest fifth of households was eight times that of the poorest fifth as of the late 2000s. New Mexico, Arizona, California, Georgia, New York, Louisiana, Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Mississippi face the largest gaps....The long-standing trend of growing income inequality continued between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s. Incomes fell by close to 6 percent among the bottom fifth of households, on average, while rising by 8.6 percent among the top fifth, during this period. Incomes grew even faster -- 14 percent -- among the top 5 percent of households. For the middle fifth of households, incomes grew by just 1.2 percent...
See also:
Summary
From the abstract:
Has any gender-based pay adjustment made by the states in the past 25 years had an effect on women's relative pay? The authors utilize a panel set of EEO-4 data on public sector employment by state to investigate the pay of women relative to men for 1999-2005. The authors find that there is a significant difference in the relative pay of women employed in states that have had a major pay adjustment in female-dominated job classes upward at any time in the past quarter century. Utilizing GLS multiple regression to predict the relative pay gaps by state, the authors find that women are better paid relative to men in the public sector than the private. The authors also find that women are better paid relative to men in Elazar's traditionalistic states as opposed to individualistic and moralistic ones, which are usually credited with having more progressive public policies.
From the abstract:
The income share of the super-rich in the United States has grown rapidly since the early 1980s after a period of postwar stability. What factors drove this change? In this study, we investigate the institutional, policy, and economic shifts that may explain rising income concentration. We use single-equation error correction models to estimate the long- and short-run effects of politics, policy, and economic factors on pretax top income shares between 1949 and 2008. We find that the rise of the super-rich is the result of rightward-shifts in Congress, the decline of labor unions, lower tax rates on high incomes, increased trade openness, and asset bubbles in stock and real estate markets.
Labor income has been declining as a share of total income earned in the United States for the past three decades. We look at the past effect of the labor share decline on income inequality, and we study the likely future path of the labor share and its implications for inequality.
Labor income has declined as a share of total income earned in the United States. This decline was caused by several factors, including a change in the technology used to produce goods and services, increased globalization and trade openness, and developments in labor market institutions and policies.
One consequence of the labor share decline has raised concerns. Since labor income is more evenly distributed across U.S. households than capital income, the decline made total income less evenly distributed and more concentrated at the top of the distribution, and this contributed to increase income inequality. In this Commentary, we look at how the labor share decline has affected income inequality in the past, and we study the likely future path of the labor share and its implications for inequality.
]]>From the introduction:
The reality is that economic success in America is not purely meritocratic. We don't have as much equality of opportunity as we'd like to believe, and we have less mobility than some other developed countries. Although cross-national comparisons are not always reliable, the available data suggest that the U.S. compares unfavorably to Canada, the Nordic countries, and some other advanced countries. A recent study shows the U.S. ranking 27th out of 31 developed countries in measures of equal opportunity.
People do move up and down the ladder, both over their careers and between generations, but it helps if you have the right parents. Children born into middle-income families have a roughly equal chance of moving up or down once they become adults, but those born into rich or poor families have a high probability of remaining rich or poor as adults. The chance that a child born into a family in the top income quintile will end up in one of the top three quintiles by the time they are in their forties is 82 percent, while the chance for a child born into a family in the bottom quintile is only 30 percent. In short, a rich child in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a poor child to end up in the middle class or above.
Why do some children do so much better than others? And what will it take to create more opportunity? The remainder of this paper addresses these two questions.
Advocates of lower tax rates argue that reduced rates would increase economic growth, increase saving and investment, and boost productivity (increase the economic pie). Proponents of higher tax rates argue that higher tax revenues are necessary for debt reduction, that tax rates on the rich are too low (i.e., they violate the Buffett rule), and that higher tax rates on the rich would moderate increasing income inequality (change how the economic pie is distributed). This report attempts to clarify whether or not there is an association between the tax rates of the highest income taxpayers and economic growth. Data is analyzed to illustrate the association between the tax rates of the highest income taxpayers and measures of economic growth. For an overview of the broader issues of these relationships see CRS Report R42111, Tax Rates and Economic Growth, by Jane G. Gravelle and Donald J. Marples.
Throughout the late-1940s and 1950s, the top marginal tax rate was typically above 90%; today it is 35%. Additionally, the top capital gains tax rate was 25% in the 1950s and 1960s, 35% in the 1970s; today it is 15%. The real GDP growth rate averaged 4.2% and real per capita GDP increased annually by 2.4% in the 1950s. In the 2000s, the average real GDP growth rate was 1.7% and real per capita GDP increased annually by less than 1%. There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. The share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. The evidence does not suggest necessarily a relationship between tax policy with regard to the top tax rates and the size of the economic pie, but there may be a relationship to how the economic pie is sliced.
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