U.S. Income Distribution: Just How Unequal?
With inequality now a front-page issue, the stats that measure inequality have taken on a new importance. And no inequality stat has a longer pedigree -- or more confusion surrounding...
Research & Commentary
From academics to activists, thoughtful people worldwide are focusing their attention on economic inequality as never before.
To Grow the Realonomy, Tax and Spend
Low taxes mean high growth, and a rising tide lifts all boats. Don't tax the job-creators. Money trickles down from the rich to the poor. We’ve been hearing arguments like...
Income Maldistribution, Windbags, and Worse
Psychologists have been tracking the phenomenon of 'biased self-perception' for years now. But new research suggests that they've been blaming the wrong social culprit. People quite full of themselves populate...
America’s Plutocrats Play the Political Ponies
Any resemblance between democracy and U.S. Presidential politics has become, in our new super PAC era, purely coincidental. The only mystery: Why aren't billionaires making even bigger bets? Life sometimes...
Outrageous Bonuses for Federal Workers
Members of the US House of Representatives -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- seems to think that federal workers are overpaid. They voted 309-117 to freeze the salaries of federal...
The ‘Buffett Rule’ in History’s Grand Sweep
President Obama has proposed a specific new minimum tax rate for millionaires. Should America's rich feel angry or relieved? We check the IRS tax data archives for an answer. The...
What’s Holding Back the US Economy?
The headline figures say that real gross domestic (GDP) product grew at an annualized rate of 2.8% in the fourth quarter of 2011 (October through December). This is good news. ...
When Does a Recession Become a Depression?
The US economy officially went into recession in December 2007. The recession supposedly lasted eighteen months. By July 2009 the economy was growing again. Well, at least the Plutonomy was...
Can Bossy Billionaires Now Boss Forever?
Changes in state tax laws now encourage America's awesomely affluent to create 'perpetual' trusts. The new laws and new technology, legal scholars warn, now allow the 'dead hand' of the...
America’s Incredible Shrinking Government
We hear all the time about America’s bloated federal government and how it’s grown like a kind of bureaucratic kudzu to smoother and strangle our otherwise dynamic economy. Now that...