Too often, people offer a one-sided view of the fiscal picture of the USA. The United States Republican Party has often quoted some figure around 50% of the people do not pay taxes. Sometimes they are kind enough to point out that’s income taxes. Even then, they won’t usually point out that some of those people could be Amish, or that to tax some of them would require giving them the money to pay in taxes.
Part of the problem, of course, is what people conjure in their minds when that figure is given. They are picturing these people living high on the hog on the public dime. And that makes them mad. But, again, they aren’t seeing the whole picture. And so, today’s post is short and sweet. I’ve taken the time to try to distill a broader picture (though probably not broad enough yet) into an image. I would have preferred a time series, but the data access of the Internet still leaves much to be desired.
The sources:
- PDF: Building a Better America—One Wealth Quintile at a Time (as reprinted in Norton Ariely in the Press PDF)
- University of California at Santa Cruz: Department of Sociology: Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power
The image:
