We're Not One of Them. We're One of You.

At the Libertarian Institute, we feature independent intellectuals who strive to understand our world and communicate that understanding to you. We don’t work for Lockheed or K Street or Qatar. We work for you. Support the Libertarian Institute Today!

$2,370 of $60,000 raised

What Inequality?

by | Jun 6, 2024

What Inequality?

by | Jun 6, 2024

According to research conducted by Phil Gramm, the late Robert Ekelund, and John Early, documented in The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate and summarized in this video:

  • The bottom 20 percent of households have an average annual income of $13,000, according to the Census Bureau. However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, those households consume an average of $26,000 worth of goods each year. How can that be?
  • In the standard computations of inequality that are used to justify more government spending, the incomes of the rich include taxes paid while the incomes of the poor exclude two-thirds of government benefits, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, and Medicaid. (There are more than a hundred transfer programs.) The rich artificially appear richer, and the poor artificially appear poorer. It’s a statistical illusion.
  • When inequality is adjusted to count taxes paid by the rich and cash and noncash benefits received by the poor (net of government admin costs), measured income inequality between the top and bottom quintiles drops from 16.7:1 to 4:1. Real income inequality is a quarter of what it is said to be.
  • Compared to 1967 and using inflation-adjusted dollars, two-thirds of Americans are in the top income quintile.
  • People in the middle quintile have about the same income as the people in the bottom quintile, though only about a third in the bottom work.

That shines a different light on things, doesn’t it?

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies; former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education; and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.

View all posts

Our Books

Shop books published by the Libertarian Institute.

libetarian institute longsleeve shirt

Our Books

15 books

Recent Articles

Recent

Comply or Be Burned to the Ground

The IED nonsense continues at professional military education institutions as the zampolits flee for cover. "The Engagement, Retention, and Equal Opportunity directly supports the Naval Academy's Strategic Imperative One: To recruit, admit, and graduate a diverse and...

read more

National Greatness

“A nation which makes greatness its polestar can never be free; beneath national greatness sink individual greatness, honor, wealth and freedom. But though history, experience and reasoning confirm these ideas; yet all- powerful delusion has been able to make the...

read more

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This