THE OTHER FIFTY

Damn near everybody's probably heard about fifty's comment about Biden's tax plan. About his brief Instagram rant on how Biden's supposedly "crazy" plan might cause fifty to just raise up and move to another country. About how Biden's purported heavy handed approach to taxes might just cause cats like fifty to, I don't know, bounce to the Bahamas or chill in the Cayman Islands. About how Biden's allegedly nefarious scheme to reach deeper into our pocket is all the more reason to put the work in to ensure that, come election day, we witness a triumphant rather than a trounced Trump.

As a general rule, I don't fool around much with celebrities. Not really interested in their private lives, their relationship advice or their book recommendations. That's just me. But fifty's little rant about taxes and, by extension, economics, got me thinking about another fifty, about a fifty that has a lot more to do with the lives of millions of persons, about a 50 that reveals a lot more about why we urgently need tax reform, about a 50 that underscores how we are more and more resembling a plutocracy than a democracy, about as 50 that is largely absent from social media and public policy discourse. About a 50 that underscores why a trounced beats a triumphant Trump any day of the week.

This 50 doesn't have a TV show and never has hawked or sold a product for big bucks. Nope. This 50 is not a person. This 50 has more to do with math than with a particular man. This 50 is much more well known amongst social scientists than the general population. And if you're the least bit interested in tax justice, economic justice or racial justice, then this is the 50 you really need to get to know.

MEET THE OTHER 50

The Other 50 (TOF), the one we hear far too little about, is the 122 million adults residing in the bottom half of the U.S. income distribution. TOF is not raking in big bucks and is not in any position to blow smoke about raising up and leaving the country. Their average income is about $18.500. Some, of course, earn more and other earn less. But their incomes, on average, clocked in at $18,500? Yeah, you heard that right; that ain't no typo.

$18,500.

You can get so wrapped in the celebrity 50 it becomes easy to forget that the TOF -- the bottom 50% of adult earners-- pulled in less than $19,000 in 2019. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman dub this 50--TOF-- as the working class. They're the folks holding up the bottom of the U.S. income pyramid. They're not likely to be bounce to the Bahamas, even if they want to.

GETTING TO KNOW THE OTHER FIFTY BETTER

One way of getting more familiar with the this other 50 is compare it's share of national income to that of another group higher up on the income pyramid. That's exactly what the graph below does: It compares changes in the income shares of the bottom 50 and top 1%. Just in case you're wondering, only 2.4 million adults earned enough bread in 2019 to be included in the top 1%, and their average income stacked up to about $1.5 mil. Nice piece of change, huh?

Anyway, take a peek at the chart below:

In 1980, a bit more than 10% of national income flowed into the pockets of the top 1% of earners, while the bottom 50%--the other 50-- held about 20% of national income. Since then, however, the script has flipped: The top 1% now grabs 20% of the national bread, while TOF's share has declined to less than 12%. In other words, over the last four decades the 1%'s rise in the share of national income has been pretty much matched by a corresponding decline in the share of the other 50. Or, think of it this way: 2.4 million people--the top 1%--earn twice as much income as the 122 million that constitute the other 50.

SOARING AND STALLING

So, what's going on? Not with fifty the rapper. Not with fifty whose income undoubtedly positions him in the top 1% of earners. But with the other fifty, the fifty whose average income is less than 19 grand. The fifty constituting the bottom of the income pyramid. What's going on with them? Well, we've seen that , in contrast to the top 1%, the other fifty's share of national income has plummeted. Not exactly surprising when you consider this:

While the income of the top 1% has been soaring, the income of TOF has stalled. Soaring and stalling is the name of the income game, so to speak. Between 1946 and 1980, real national income per adult just about doubled, increasing by 95%. What's more, during this period, the incomes of the bottom 50% grew faster (102%) than those of the top 1% (47%). National income, in other words, became more equitably distributed.

But check out what's happened since then. Since 1980, national income growth has slowed from 95% to 61% and it has become much more skewed. In the post 1980 period, the incomes of the bottom 50% stagnated, increasing by about 1% or a couple of hundred bucks. What about the top 1%? Different story. Between 1980-2019, the average income of that group zoomed upward by 204%. You heard that right. Their income increased by 204%. Tripled. So, while the other 50 gained no new ground, the top 1% hit a serious lick. That's what making out like a bandit looks like. Rising income inequality is a thing.

By the way, the results are even more astounding when you divvy up the top 1% even further. Since 1980, the income of the top 0.1% streaked upward by 320%. How about the top 0.01? Well, during the post 1980 period, that group's average income shot up by 453%. And the big daddy of them all--the top 0.001%-- experienced a whopping increase of 636%.

Did I already say that increasing income inequality is a thing?

GET UP WITH THE OTHER FIFTY PERCENT

Back to the rapper/celeb fifty for a quick second. Behind his initial comment was a concern about taking a hit from Biden's tax proposal. I'll get into some of the details of that proposal in a subsequent post. For the moment, let me drop this and raise up: If we are to create something new, something more just, something more beautiful, then we had better envision something that speaks to those folks who feel as if the the winds of economic change have blown them aside and left them behind. We had better pay attention to the profound ways in which growing income inequality threatens democracy. We had better pay attention to working class issues.

We had better get up with the Other Fifty Percent.

Catch you on the flip side,

Doc Greene