What's the main predictor of income gaps in America? Single parenthood.
Excellent overview of the American working person and his income at Villainous. One quote re the non-static nature of low income in the US:
A University of Michigan study shows that only 5 percent of those in the bottom fifth of the income distribution in 1975 remained there in 1991. What happened to them? They moved up to the top three-fifths of the income distribution -- middle class or higher. Moreover, three out of 10 of the lowest income earners in 1975 moved all the way into the top fifth of income earners by 1991.
Thus there is no "poverty class" in the US. We are mobile, and poverty is temporary. Another quote, re Obama's taxes:
...the most astonishing sentence in the op-ed (in The Economist) is this one: “His plan would not raise any taxes on couples making less than $250,000 a year, nor on any single person with income under $200,000.” It amounts to a declaration of war on two-income families, a marriage penalty of punitive proportions.
If those two single persons with income just under $200,000 get married, Mr. Obama is going to hammer them with a huge tax increase. If the second earner, who in many cases is the woman, is going to have to give 54% of what she earns to the government, she might as well stay home with the children.
Read the whole thing. Link above.
