Senator Bernie Sanders claims that there has been a "Massive transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top one percent." Senator Elizabeth Warren lambastes America's "Extreme concentration of wealth." Even the establishment Joe Biden laments, "This wealth gap that exists in the United States of America is so profound now."
Are increases in wealth inequality the awful thing that Democrats claim? It depends on what causes them.
The bad news is that the government itself generates wealth inequality in at least two ways that make us worse off.
The other way that the government fuels wealth inequality is a deeper scandal.
In a simulation model, Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence Kotlikoff estimated that Social Security raises the share of overall wealth held by the top 1 percent of wealth holders by about 80 percent.
A 2015 study by Pirmin Fessler and Martin Schurz examined European data and found that "Inequality of wealth is higher in countries with a relatively more developed welfare state ... given an increase of welfare state expenditure, wealth inequality measured by standard relative inequality measures, such as the Gini coefficient, will increase."
Their big government approaches to social policy would have the opposite effect on wealth inequality than what they may believe.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/how-government-creates-wealth-inequality/
Are increases in wealth inequality the awful thing that Democrats claim? It depends on what causes them.
The bad news is that the government itself generates wealth inequality in at least two ways that make us worse off.
The other way that the government fuels wealth inequality is a deeper scandal.
In a simulation model, Jagadeesh Gokhale and Laurence Kotlikoff estimated that Social Security raises the share of overall wealth held by the top 1 percent of wealth holders by about 80 percent.
A 2015 study by Pirmin Fessler and Martin Schurz examined European data and found that "Inequality of wealth is higher in countries with a relatively more developed welfare state ... given an increase of welfare state expenditure, wealth inequality measured by standard relative inequality measures, such as the Gini coefficient, will increase."
Their big government approaches to social policy would have the opposite effect on wealth inequality than what they may believe.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/how-government-creates-wealth-inequality/
No comments:
Post a Comment