Free Republic

MADISON – While labor unions grouse about public sector pay, a state government job is a good gig if you can get it, according to the latest income data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Wisconsin, state employees earned on average $53,552 in 2012, nearly $12,000 more than their fellow workers in the private sector, based on BLS data tracked by Stateline, the news service of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The salary data was drawn from BLS’ Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages, through the fourth quarter of 2012. While Wisconsin state employees are coming off a two-year...

Real Wages Decline Again — Literally No One Notices Kenneth Thomas, Middle Class Political Economist Jun. 1, 2013, 12:09 PM You read it here first: Real wages fell 0.2% in 2012, down from $295.49 (1982-84 dollars) to $294.83 per week, according to the 2013 Economic Report of the President. Thus, a 1.9% increase in nominal wages was more than wiped out by inflation, marking the 40th consecutive year that real wages have remained below their 1972 peak. Yet no one in the media noticed, or at least none thought it newsworthy. I searched the web and the subscription-only Nexis news...

By David WilezolIn the last few months, there's been a flurry of articles in the mainstream press acknowledging the same problem: a paucity of high-achieving, low-income students at elite colleges. "Better Colleges Failing to Lure Talented Poor," says the New York Times. ABC tells us "Colleges Struggle to Connect With High-Achieving Poor Students." Likewise, NPR is concerned that "Elite Colleges Struggle To Recruit Smart, Low-Income Kids." Why does it matter that top-performing low-income students aren't making it into the best schools? After all, many other above-average schools would be happy to accept them and even give them adequate grant or...

A tax bill that would raise revenue $2.1 billion by boosting taxes on high-wage earners, smokers and corporations is headed for debate by the Senate. The bill, which also helps support a development plan pushed by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester officials say could bring thousands of jobs to Minnesota, is expected to be on the agenda once state Senators return to chambers at 11 a.m. The bill passed the state House by a 69-65 vote early Monday morning, May 20. It is one of the last major tax and spending bills the Legislature is taking up as it finalizes...

It's time to grapple with the new 3.8% tax on investment income. The ordeal of 2012 taxes is barely over. But it isn't too early to understand and cushion the blow of the investment-income levy, which Congress passed in 2010 to help fund the health-care overhaul. The tax, which took effect Jan. 1, applies to the "net investment income" of married joint filers who have more than $250,000 of income (or $200,000 for singles). Only investment income—such as dividends, interest and capital gains—above the thresholds is taxed. The rate is a flat 3.8% in addition to other taxes owed. "Affluent...

House DFLers are going after "The One Percent" in a big way. Make that the 1.1 percent of Minnesotans who earn the highest incomes. The DFL-controlled House passed a tax bill -- 69-64 with all Republicans voting "no" -- Wednesday, April 24, that creates a new, fourth income tax bracket with an 8.49 percent rate -- up from the current 7.85 percent rate -- for the top-earning 1.1 percent of Minnesotans -- couples with taxable incomes over $400,000. On top of that, the bill would impose a temporary 4 percent income tax surcharge on the 0.5 percent of taxpayers making...

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) in their weekly mortgage application indices, the Refinance Index increased 5 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 4 percent from one week earlier is at its highest level since May of 2010 and the adjusted Conventional Purchase Index increased 3 percent to the highest level since October 2009. While mortgage purchase applications remain below the average from 2000-2103, they are showing a generally rising trend. Given the relative affordability of housing, it is a little surprising that mortgage purchase applications are so low. The usual lineup of suspects...

Didn't see your state on the lists of Best States to Make a Living or Worst States to Make a Living? Find it below in the full 50-state rankings. Again, these rankings are based on an analysis that considered: •Average wage and unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics •Cost of living data from C2ER (formerly ACCRA) •State tax rate information from Tax-Rates.org •The Workplace Environment rankings from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index poll Going from best to worst, here is how all 50 U.S. states ranked for 2013:

In a March 18 post on his “Economics One” blog, John B. Taylor published the very illuminating chart reproduced below. The chart, which is based upon IRS data complied by economist Emmanuel Saez, shows that (at least in absolute terms) rising inequality hasn’t even benefited the so-called rich. They, like the rest of America, would be better off today if the government policy errors that led to the increasing income disparity had not occurred. From 20 feet away, anyone can see that something bad happened to the U.S. economy in 1968. Prior to that, America experienced rapid income growth that...

<p>Nearly half — 48 percent — of American workers haven’t noticed that more money is being taken out of their paychecks for the payroll tax that funds Social Security, according to a survey released today by Bankrate.com.</p> <p>In the previous two years, workers’ paid 4.2 percent of wages (on income of up to $113,700 this year) instead of 6.2 percent. But during last year’s tax negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff, the payroll tax holiday wasn’t extended. Many predicted at the time that low-income workers would be the most hurt by the payroll tax going up 2 percentage points.</p>

Sequestration, the measly slowdown in the growth rate of government spending, was President Obama and his Chief of Staff (now Treasury Secretary) Jacob Lew’s idea. Now President Obama has signed it into law. Today, I received an email from The White House explaining that it is all the Republicans fault for not closing tax loopholes on the wealthiest Americans. Furthermore, hundred of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs … or see their paycheck reduced. Dang, I wish Obama had thought of that in the first place!! Well, this is a better forecast that Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) prediction of 170...

According to the BEA release this morning, personal income dropped by 3.6% in January, the biggest drop in 20 years. Meanwhile, the personal savings rate (as a percentage of disposable income) fell to its lowest point since 2007. As I have pointed out before, wages and salaries as a percentage of GDP continues to plummet since 1970. Of course, none of this is positive news for the housing market. The housing recovery cannot be eternally lifted by cash investors and The Fed zero interest rate policies. At least the 10 year Treasury rate is falling with wages and salaries. But...

Consumer spending in the U.S. rose in January even as incomes dropped by the most in 20 years, showing households were weathering the payroll-tax increase by socking away less money in the bank. Household purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy, climbed 0.2 percent after a 0.1 percent gain the prior month, a Commerce Department report showed today in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 76 economists called for a 0.2 percent advance. Incomes slumped 3.6 percent, sending the saving rate down to the lowest level since November 2007. Employment gains, the rebound in...

On February 3rd, 1913, one of the two most historic events in US history took place: the ratification of the 16th amendment, which established Congress' right to impose a Federal income tax on Americans, and overturned Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution which explicitly prohibited a general income tax. The amendment was brief and to the point, and read as follows: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." And with that, the US Federal Income...

Where do you fit in the 2012 ranking of total money income by age group in the United States? While we've previously built a tool where you can find out your percentile ranking among all individuals, men, women, families and households in the U.S., we thought it might be fun to break the data for individuals down a little differently - by age group! Our chart below reveals what that distribution looked like for 2012, as indicated by the curves showing the major income percentiles from the 10th through the 90th percentile for each indicated age group on the horizontal...

RALEIGH — Efforts are under way to make North Carolina the first state since Alaska in 1980 to eliminate taxes on total personal income. Competing proposals also would launch a pro-growth tax reform renaissance that would scrap corporate income taxes that discourage capital investment and savings. The John Locke Foundation introduced a plan Wednesday including those elements, along with a repeal of estate taxes and the retail sales tax at the state level. Researchers at the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C-based tax research group, are among those lauding the JLF plan. “The whole point is economic growth. It’s not...

Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena, when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains and holds back our growth. When even the free-market-oriented magazine The Economist argues — as it did in a special feature in October — that the magnitude and nature of the country’s inequality represent a serious threat to America, we should know that something has gone horribly wrong. ... There are four major reasons inequality is squelching our recovery. The most immediate is that our middle class is too weak to support the consumer spending that has historically...

But let's take a look at that list of high-income-inequality states again. What do California, Arizona and New Mexico all have in common? I'll give you a hint: Texas comes in seventh on the high-income-inequality state list. That's right: The three states with the highest income inequality also all share a border with Mexico. But what about New York? Or Georgia? Or Illinois (which is the sixth-most-unequal state)? They are all hundreds of miles away from Mexico. Well, it turns out that all of those states have huge illegal immigrant populations too. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, every one...

All of this talk about taxing people who make 200k or 250k or more. What a joke. With the excessive printing of money, almost everyone in this country who has a job will make 200,000 thousand dollars or more. And, milk will be $12 a gallon, etc., ad nauseum. However, everyone will still fall under taxation rules when that happens. You're making more money, but everything rises in price to meet your income and now you're paying more in taxes. How can people be so foolish to vote these insane policies into effect? What about rental property? The next step...

The median net worth of American households has dropped to a 43-year low as the lower and middle classes appear poorer and less stable than they have been since 1969. According to a recent study by New York University economics professor Edward N. Wolff, median net worth is at the decades-low figure of $57,000 (in 2010 dollars). And as the numbers in his study reflect, the situation only appears worse when all the statistics are taken as a whole. According to Wolff, between 1983 and 2010, the percentage of households with less than $10,000 in assets (using constant 1995 dollars)...