This only seems to account for direct social spending, not indirect - which much of the cold war was, that large peacetime military, its transfer payments from the government to rural america.

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?

Median real personal income has risen significantly in the past 1-2 generations. It looks like the common man in the US is doing quite well compared to our ancestors.

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.

> Median real personal income has risen significantly in the past 1-2 generations.

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.

There is effectively no cash welfare in the United States. Those who are getting cash income at the bottom of the scale are getting it because of disability or age.

Because there is no cash welfare, people are indeed earning their money mostly by performing work.

Forced sharing isn’t an accepted term or even one that is worth using in discourse. Transfer payments benefit society which in turn benefits the best off too. They benefit from them.