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Income Mobility

• To cushion tax shock, advisers urged to act

  [Investment News, November 2, 2008]As mutual fund investors brace for a likely double whammy of negative performance, coupled with above-average income and capital gains distributions, financial advisers are homing in on all manner of tax management to try to cushion the blow and add some value in a dismal market environment.

• INEQUALITY IN AMERICA

  [NCPA, October 6, 2008] What is driving income inequality in American? Signs points to the advent of technology, the thrill of the winners-take-most markets, the effect of an educated family structure, the force of immigration, say Arnold Kling, an economist and author, and Nick Schulz, the DeWitt Wallace fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

• THE CASE FOR CORPORATE INCOME TAX CUTS

  [NCPA, September 30, 2008] Because they contribute to capital flight, high corporate tax rates lower government revenue. With increasing capital mobility, multinational firms respond to higher taxes by moving activities to lower tax jurisdictions. This capital flight means fewer taxes are paid domestically. In fact, governments frequently find that at a higher rate the tax actually raises less revenue.

• The Wealth Trajectory

  [New York Times, April 20, 2008] The sharp rise in income inequality is largely due to an educational slowdown, according Claudia Goldin, an economic historian, and Lawrence F. Katz, a labor economist, at Harvard University.

• Clinton Tax Lessons

  [Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2008] New York Senator Hillary Clinton and her husband spend a lot of time on the Presidential trail deploring the "wealthy" and "well-connected." As their newly released tax records for 2000 to 2007 show, they know of whom they speak, says the Wall Street Journal.

• The Inequality Myth

  [Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2008] While figures from the U.S. Census give some substance to the fears of widening inequality and middle-class stagnation, the situation is not nearly as clear-cut.

• About That Middle-Class Squeeze

  [Investor's Business Daily, March 4th, 2008] Democrats seem unable to stop themselves from promoting higher taxes for the wealthy and lower taxes for the poor. But if the public knew the facts, their rhetoric would have no resonance.

• You Are What You Spend

  [New York Times, February 10, 2008] With the word "recession" on everybody's lips, renewed attention is being given to the gap between the haves and have-nots in America. Most of this debate, however, is focused on the wrong measurement of financial well-being.

• Entitlement Time Bombs Threaten Uncle Sam's 'Full Faith and Credit'

  [Investor's Business Daily, February 5, 2008] Within a relatively short time, the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. government could come at a much higher cost, and that cost will be passed on to all Americans, today and in the future.

• Warning of Job Losses If Minimum Pay Adopted

  [Financial Times, January 8, 2007] Germany faces the prospect of massive job losses if plans for minimum wages become a reality.

• The Impossible Dream?

  [Washington Post, November 28, 2007] Many press reports duly echo the theme that the middle-class American dream continues to elude African American Families. The reality is different: Since the 1960s, the black middle class has steadily expanded.

• Democrat's Wake Up To Being The Party Of The Rich

  [Heritage Foundation, November 6th, 2007] With Democrats controlling the majority of the nation's wealthiest congressional jurisdictions, the reality is that, in America, the Democratic party is the new "party of the rich."

• Income Confusion

  [Townhall.com, November 21, 2007] Most Americans do not stay in the same income brackets throughout their lives; millions of people move from one bracket to another in just a few years.

• The Real Pending Tax Hike

  [Washington Post, November 9, 2007] Washington is abuzz about the tax proposal introduced recently by House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.). The bill tackles a host of tax policy matters but its centerpiece proposes to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and offset that revenue loss with an $800 billion tax increase on the roughly 3.5 million taxpayers earning above $200,000 a year.

• Movin' On Up

  [Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2007] A new study by the U.S. Treasury shows that the United States remains a dynamic society marked by rapid and mostly upward income mobility. Much as they always have, Americans on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder continue to climb into the middle and sometimes upper classes in remarkably short periods of time.

• The Truth On Trade

  [The Cato Institute, November 7, 2007] Like so many assumptions about trade, the belief that more global competition has somehow lowered the living standards of the average American worker and family is just a myth.

• Air Traffic Heist

  [Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2007]The Alternative Minimum Tax will soon explode on 20 million middle-income taxpayers if Congress fails to pass relief soon.

• Fringe Benefits Keep The Total Compensation Of Government Workers Ahead Of Private Sector

  [Heartland Institute, November 1, 2007] State and local workers are not paid as well as federal workers, on average, but they usually receive similarly generous fringe benefits, including high job security and lucrative pension and health care plans.

• Are The Poor Getting Poorer?

  [Townhall.com, October 31, 2007] People who want more government income redistribution programs often sell their agenda by saying the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. But in reality, the rich are getting richer, and so are the poor.

• Charlie The Job Killer

  [Investor's Business Daily, October 27, 2007] Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) wants to pass the largest income-tax hike ever, ostensibly to shield the middle class from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

• The Truth About The Top 1 Percent

  [Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2007] According to new Internal Revenue Service data announced last week, income inequality in the U.S. is at its worst since the 1920s. The top percentile of wealthy Americans earned 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent in 2004. These statistics are extremely misleading.

• Happiness And Inequality

  [Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2007] The Democrats are correct that income inequality in America has increased over the decades, but their "egalitarian" attacks are misleading.

• The Federal Income Tax Burden

  [Tax Foundation, October 10, 2007] New data released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offers interesting insights into the distributional spread of the federal income tax burden.

• Did America's Have-Nots Double In 20 Years?

  [Townhall.com, October 11, 2007] Some 34 percent of Americans say they belong to the "have-nots." Twenty years ago, only 17 percent of Americans defined themselves this way. But taking a closer look at today's "have-nots" reveal that they lead considerably better lives than they did even a decade or two ago.

• State Lawmakers Burden The Poor

  [Republican American, September 12, 2007] Keeping fuel taxes at record levels and raising cigarette taxes to $2 a pack only worsened the pain the government inflicts on low-income people by robbing them of more of their money as they robbed them of their economic independence with government handouts.

• Are Our 37 Million Poor Really Poor

  [Townhall.com, September 11, 2007] Presidential candidate John Edwards and others lament that 37 million Americans struggle with incredible poverty every day. But it is not so simple or accurate to think of them as truly poor.

• Importing Poverty

  [The Washington Post, September 5, 2007] The stubborn persistence of poverty, at least as measured by the government, is increasingly a problem associated with immigration.

• The Other Census Story

  [The Wall Street Journal, September 4, 2007] The recent news that the U.S. poverty rate fell to 12.3 percent in 2006 from 12.6 percent in the prior year becomes even more noteworthy when you consider that Hispanics led the way.

• Poverty Drops As Nation's Income Hits Five-Year High

  [USA Today, August 29, 2007] The nation's median household income rose to $48,200 and the poverty rate fell to 12.3 percent in 2006, the first time this decade that both improved.

• How Poor Are America's Poor?

  [Heritage Foundation, August 30, 2007] The average "poor" person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines.

• The Two-Income Tax Trap

  [Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2007] Despite recent plummets in bankruptcy numbers, some scholars argue that the drop is temporary and that rising bankruptcies will result from new stresses on American households.

• The Tax-Rate Dilemma

  [Washington Times, August 9, 2007] The political case for pro-growth tax policy, as opposed to redistributionist tax policy, is simple. Americans believe no one should have to pay more than 25 percent of income to the government.

• The Edwards Tax Plan

  [Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2007] According to John Edwards' tax plan, lower-income families would be eligible for another $500 in government match money and the first $250 in investment income would be tax-exempt for all families.

• The Backlash Against Globalization

  [Investor's Business Daily, July 24, 2007] U.S. economic inequality has virtually nothing to do with globalization or free trade, per se. It has everything to do with education and skills.

• Ask Albania

  [Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2007] For a lesson in pro-growth tax policy, see Albania. This small Balkan country is about to halve its personal income-tax rate.

• Warning: Tax Danger Ahead

  [American Enterprise Institute, June 25, 2007] If you're like most people, you've never paid much attention to the alternative minimum tax (AMT). This year, though, what you don't know about the AMT could hurt you.

• Why We Pay without a Whimper

  [American Enterprise Institute, May 7, 2007] Fundamental tax reform could increase incomes of average Americans, but it is unlikely to happen.

• When 'Progressive' Means Punitive

  [Cato Institute, May 20, 2007] An article by Cato's Alen Reynolds discussing income inequality.

• Performance-Based Pay Driving Increase in Inequality

  [Heritage Foundation, June 13, 2007] One of the reasons for rising inequality in the United States is that more companies are using performance pay, and this accounts for a quarter of the increase in inequality.

• Analyzing Economic Mobility: Measuring Inequality and Economic Mobility

  [Heritage Foundation, May 31, 2007] A new report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) offers new proof that many of America's poorest citizens are doing better than they were 14 years ago.

• Compensation Is Keeping Pace with Rising Productivity

  [Heritage Foundation, June 11, 2007] There is a widespread belief that productivity is rising but workers are not receiving the fruits of their labor. Citing government data that wages have lagged far behind increases in worker productivity in recent years, many politicians contend that America is becoming less economically mobile.

• Does It Pay to Save

  [NCPA, June 2007] Does it pay to save? The answer is often no. In fact, penalties for saving are astronomical for some households, particularly young, single-parent and lower-income families.

• The AMT "Fix" Is In

  [Investor's Business Daily, June 8, 2007]This year an estimated 23 million taxpayers, including many in the middle class, will have to pony up an added $73 billion in taxes because of the Alternative Minimum Tax.

• The Poor Get Richer

  [Wall Street Journal, May 23, 2007] The poor have been getting less poor. On average, low-wage households with children have incomes after inflation that were more than one-third higher in 2005 than in 1991.

• Putting Taxes on the Map: Federal Tax Burdens by City, County, Congressional District and State

  [Tax Foundation, March 22, 2007] Americans in some cities, counties and congressional districts bear a much heavier burden to finance federal spending than in others.

• $650 Billion Tax Hike

  [Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2007] Key Democrats have come up with their plan to protect the middle class from the growing reach of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

• Taxing Times

  [Suburban Journals/Tax Foundation, April 30, 2007] While the deadline for filing state and federal income taxes has come and gone, Americans theoretically won't have earned enough money to pay them until around the end of April.

• California's Aged Tax System

  [Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2007] One of the main problems with California's state income tax is that the rich pay, while the lower middle-class and poor skate.

• The Taxpaying Minority

  [Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2007] The U.S. income tax system is so bad and increasingly reliant on a shrinking number of Americans to pay the nation's bills, that 40 percent of the country's households pay no income taxes at all.

• State Income Taxes Hurt Low-Income Families

  [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, March 27, 2007] Poor families in many states face substantial state income tax liability for the 2007 tax year, making it more difficult to escape poverty.

• Is Inequality Increasing?

  [Greenwood Press, 2006] Have all of the income gains of the past two decades gone only to those at the top, with everyone else stagnating or falling behind?

• Can CBO Spell IRA?

  [Wall Street Journal, February 6, 2007] Is the share of income of the top 1 percent in the United States high and rising? According to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) it is. But that analysis is wrong.

• Are The Rich Getting Richer?

  [Cato Institute, January 8, 2007] Studies claim that the top 1 percent of income earners receive 15 percent of all income today, but they fail to distinguish between reported and unreported income, or taxed and untaxed or measured and unmeasured.

• How to Make the Poor Poorer

  [Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2007] Although some workers benefit from an increased minimum wage, others are pushed into unemployment, the underground economy or crime.

• Incomes and Inequality: What the Numbers Don't Tell Us

  [New York Times, January 25, 2007] While there is little doubt that the gap between the wealthy and everybody else has widened in recent years, the situation is not as unfair as some of the numbers seem to imply.

• American Idles

  [Toledo Blade/U.S. Department of Bureau and Labor Statistics, January 22, 2007] The increase in the federal minimum wage Congress passed by a vote of 315-116 is a triumph of feelings over facts. Sounds great. The deserving working poor are finally going to be paid a living wage. Except that it isn't true.

• The Poor Get Richer

  [Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2007] The world is growing richer, and the gap between the per-capita income of have-not populations and that of the developed world is narrowing.

• Has U.S. Income Inequality Really Increased?

  [Cato Institute, January 8, 2007] Estimates of rising inequality that are widely cited in the media are often based on federal income tax return data. Those data appear to show that the share of U.S. income going to the top 1 percent (those people with the highest incomes) has increased substantially since the 1970s. But has it?

• Maine Personal Income: An Analysis of the Private and Public Sector Components

  [Maine Heritage Policy Center, December 19, 2006] Personal income is an important economic measure of a state's well-being because higher levels mean that a state's residents are able to buy more goods and services. It is also a very useful way to gauge the ability of a state's residents to pay taxes.

• Nostalgic about 1974?

  [Cato Institute, December 19, 2006] The growth and distribution of income is a topic that generates strong opinions based on weak facts. But if the facts are wrong (and they usually are), then the opinions are, too, says Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

• The Top 1 Percent...Of What?

  [Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2006] According to the Cato Institute, there is no clear trend toward increased inequality in the distribution of disposable income, consumption, wages or wealth after 1988.

• Helping America's Workers

  [The Economist, October 4, 2006] Left-leaning populists believe strengthening unions and cowing big business will narrow the gap between rich and poor. However, that argument is nonsense.

• Conspicuous Consumption

  [AEI, September 25, 2006] Consumption has increased sharply in recent years, revealing the flawed income statistics as woefully inadequate measures of well-being.

• Wages of Stagnation

  [Townhall, September 26, 2006] Despite wage and income stagnation at the macro level, people continue to move up out of the working class into the middle and upper classes, says Townhall columnist Bruce Bartlett.

• More Welfare, More Poverty

  [Cato Institute, September 21, 2006]News that the poverty rate remained at 12.6 percent last year, statistically unchanged from the year before, has set off a predictable round of calls for increased government spending on social welfare programs.

• Poor-Mouthing Prosperity

  [Cato Institute, September 22, 2006] No matter how the doom-and-gloomers torture the data, the fact is that Americans have made huge strides in material welfare over the past generation.

• Income Distribution and the Information Technology Bubble

  [New York Times/University of Texas Inequality Project, September 21, 2006] According to University of Texas researchers much of the increase in income inequality in the late 1990s resulted from large income changes in just a handful of locations around the country.

• Populist Myths on Income Inequality

  [New York Times, September 7, 2006] Populists argue that rising income inequality is the result of a broken market. The rules are rigged. The reigning ideology in Washington must be upended. Unions must be revived.

• Anniversary of a Tax Disaster

  [Yankee Institute, August 2006] A new paper released by the Yankee Institute documents the negative consequences of the broad-based income tax passed by Connecticut legislators and signed into law in 1991.

• Edwardian Poverty

  [TCS Daily, July 25, 2006] Supposedly, in the 1990s, the Earned Income Tax Credit lifted 7 million people out of poverty. But in actuality, it didn't.

• Are You Wealthy? It's All Relative

  [Dallas Morning News, August 14, 2006] If you're young, there's good news: You don't need as much money to be considered well off as you did a few years ago.

• The Rising Cost of Complying with the Federal Income Tax

  [Tax Foundation, January 10, 2006] When examined by income level, compliance cost is found to be highly regressive, taking a larger toll on low-income taxpayers as a percentage of income than high-income taxpayers.

• Number of Americans Paying Zero Federal Income Tax Grows to 43.4 Million

  [Tax Foundation, March 30, 2006] During 2006, Tax Foundation economists estimate that roughly 43.4 million tax returns, representing 91 million individuals, will face a zero or negative tax liability and 41 percent of the U.S. population will be completely outside the federal income tax system in 2006.

• Income Distribution: Stagnant or Mobile?

  [NCPA, July 13, 2005] A paper on income distribution by Bruce Bartlett for Laffer Associates.