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A comment on We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor. Parent comment

Re:We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor by Mvandenbergh on Monday February 04, 2013 @09:27AM (#5164188)
If that were the case then savings rates should have trended upwards over the last few decades as tax rates have come down in the US.
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Re:We should only work 25 hours a week, argues professor by InclinedPlane on Monday February 04, 2013 @06:07PM (#5167864)
That change only applied to some.

Here's a graph of overall tax burden since 1960 broken down by income group: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/04/13/opinion/sunda...

Only the top 1% has seen a dramatic change in tax burden over that time frame, for everyone else taxes have either stayed steady or gone up overall. The most important parts of this graph are the middle, second, and top quintiles, who should be the most capable of putting money aside. However, their federal tax burdens all rose substantially. And the recent reduction in tax rates has only occurred during a massive economic contraction so there hasn't been a true opportunity for most people to make use of the lower rates yet.

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