>Top marginal tax rate in the mid 1900s was 70-90% and the estate tax was actually assessed.
Federal transfer payments (in %gdp), AKA forced sharing rather than providing some kind of quid-pro-quo service (which you allude to above), are increasing almost monotonically. Significantly higher than the mid 1900s.
Also, when I say shared prosperity, I dont mean transfer payments, nor do I mean forced sharing, I mean why are so few benefits of our greater productivity seen by the majority (bottom 2/3rds), why has the standard of living fallen in real terms for the bottom 50% of the country? why do we feel poorer?
If we're looking at voluntary trade of wealth, rather than forced sharing, that seems to be doing quite well!
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
>why has the standard of living fallen in real terms for the bottom 50% of the country?
>Right, but again, I'm not talking transfer payments, or forced sharing, if I'd meant to speak to transfer payments, I would have said transfer payments, not 'shared prosperity'.
Do you think those at the bottom are getting most of their income from transfer payments or are they getting it from voluntary trade and charity? The people at the bottom are living off of transfer payments (forced sharing).
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>which makes the actual situation very clear: real median personal income has lagged substantially behind real GDP per capita ever since 1975 or so.
Perhaps the median worker is being 'robbed', but another explanation is merely the median worker isn't where the majority of the value creation gains have been located for the past ~50 years.
That's already a warped measure. Given that we've seen GDP (and some other measures of overall economic productivity) rise during that time, the least you'd expect is that "median real personal income would rise".
But the more relevant question is: how has median real personal income risen compared to the overall increase in productivity? That is, we're doing/making more (and also buying/selling more), but who are the beneficiaries of this growth? If it isn't basically everyone, why not and should it be?
And here's the SLF graph for that:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Vgqj
which makes the actual situation very clear: real median personal income has lagged substantially behind real GDP per capita ever since 1975 or so.
Because there is no cash welfare, people are indeed earning their money mostly by performing work.
Top marginal tax rate in the mid 1900s was 70-90% and the estate tax was actually assessed without exempting the first $14M or whatever it is.
It’s all a social construct and we collectively set the rules.