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New York Magazine's Annie Lowrey excitedly writes "that there's a welfare-policy idea that is very in vogue. That idea is just giving everybody enough money to live on, rich or poor, old or young, working or not working. It is called a universal basic income." She adds that the idea has captured the imagination of Silicon Valley technologists, European socialists, U.S. policymakers on the left and right, and seemingly everyone in between. And while Lowrey is hedging herself as to whether a universal basic income or guaranteed income will succeed, it doesn't take much casual analysis to see that what...

President Barack Obama’s income fell to just over $436,000 in 2015, the lowest of his presidency, and he and first lady Michelle Obama paid nearly $81,500 in taxes, according to tax returns the White House released on Friday. The president’s more modest adjusted gross income reflected book sales that have continued to fall off in the years since he last published in 2006. The first family paid an effective tax rate of 18.7 percent. The Obamas also reported donating $64,000 to charity, or about 15 percent of their income. Their largest charitable donation, $9,000, went to the Fisher House Foundation,...

Bernie Sanders reportedly earned just over $200,000 in 2014. That same year, Hillary Clinton, Sanders's top Democratic rival, gave about 45 paid speeches, many of which paid her more in a single hour than Sanders made the entire year.

Last night, President Obama held a fundraiser in the San Francisco Bay area, where he told presumably wealthy donors to be concerned about inequality and the wave of populism that's sweeping the nation. Oh, and did I forget to mention that one ticket to this event cost $33,400 (via the Hill): Obama has previously expressed surprise by the enthusiasm generated by Trump and Sanders. But he urged donors attending the $33,400-per-ticket fundraiser to understand that populist candidates in both parties are tapping into something real. "Despite all the progress we've made ... what is true is that people are anxious,”...

American drivers are now enjoying gasoline prices that haven't been this low since January 2009. Data from the AAA shows that the average annual price for a gallon of gas has been below $2 a gallon for about a month now. Just within the past week, the national average gas price ticked below $1.80 for a gallon of regular gas, a drop of 20 cents just since the beginning of 2016. "I think you have probably another three to four weeks of prices in this area - I think we could drop another nickel or so," said Denton Cinquegrana, chief...

When Carol Sue Johnson, 73, wheels her silver Mazda S.U.V. out of her driveway in suburban Minneapolis, she doesn't know how much money she will make driving for the ride-hailing service Uber, but she's sure she will have an adventure. Her passengers run the gamut, she said, from three visiting Chinese business executives who were surprised to see a female driver, to teenagers needing a ride to hockey practices or games. When one group of teenagers "started to get too rowdy," said Ms. Johnson, who goes by Sue, "one of them told the others to stop because 'Grandma's in the...

Suppose it is dinnertime, and the phone rings. It is a polite survey taker with a simple question for you: How is the economy doing? You might answer the question based upon the news stories you've seen recently about the latest unemployment rate, or perhaps based on anecdotal observations, such as whether your long-jobless cousin has had any luck finding work. But a wide range of academic work suggests a different factor that is likely to shape your answer: whether the current occupant of the White House is of your preferred political party. Did unemployment get better or worse during...

If it takes more than $126,000 to fund a qualitatively defined middle class lifestyle, what sense does it even make to call this "middle"?The Pew Research Center's recent report The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground: No longer the majority and falling behind financially made a media splash, as it reported that less than 50% of adults are members of the Great American Middle Class. My analysis suggests that by more qualitative measures, no more than a third of U.S. households qualify as middle class: claiming 49% of the nation's households are still middle class is a gross exaggeration. My analysis starts with the minimum...

Some folks think the world owes them a living. Must we appease them? Should government hand every man, woman and child a check each month to make sure we're all taken care of? Finland is looking at this basic idea, which Finns dub an "unconditional basic income" (UBI). One proposal suggests providing every Finn 800-Euros a month without regard to income, or lack thereof. Polling shows the basic idea is quite popular, with 69 percent of Finns endorsing a slightly more generous proposal. It sounds like Democrat George McGovern's "guaranteed annual income," which was mocked and ridiculed during the 1972...

Once upon a time, middle class households took home 62 percent of all income in America. Today, that number has dropped to just 43 percent. This is just one of the absolutely astounding statistics that you will read about in this article. Over the years, the middle class in America has been in steady decline. Our incomes have been going down, our net worth has been going down, the quality of our jobs has been going down, and yet the cost of living just keeps going up. As a result of all of these factors, more Americans are living in...

Authorities in Finland are considering giving every citizen a tax-free payout of €800 (£576) each month. Under proposals being draw up by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution (Kela), this national basic income would replace all other benefit payments, and would be paid to all adults regardless of whether or not they receive any other income. Unemployment in Finland is currently at record levels, and the basic income is intended to encourage more people back to work. At present, many unemployed people would be worse off if they took on low-paid temporary jobs due to loss of welfare payments.

PERSONAL INCOME AND OUTLAYS, OCTOBER 2015 Personal income increased $68.1 billion, or 0.4 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $56.8 billion, or 0.4 percent, in October, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $15.2 billion, or 0.1 percent. In September, personal income increased $27.4 billion, or 0.2 percent, DPI increased $27.0 billion, or 0.2 percent, and PCE increased $9.5 billion, or 0.1 percent, based on revised estimates. Real DPI increased 0.4 percent in October, compared with an increase of 0.3 percent in September. Real PCE increased 0.1 percent in October, the same increase as...

The disturbing evidence about the health of white middle-aged American working class, discovered and publicized this week by Nobel prize winner Angus Deaton and his wife Anne Case, is not tied to just one trend in the culture, policies, or economic factors at work within the United States. It is not the fault of one party or movement, but has multiple root causes. But it is something we all ought to be concerned about, both for the future fiscal and policy burden it represents, and for the broader lesson it tells us about how America is changing. The numbers clearly...

A new report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the personal income of Michigan residents grew 3.7 percent between the second quarter of 2014 and the second quarter of 2015. Even more impressive, from 2012 through the second quarter of 2015 personal income here has increased by 9.2 percent here (from $382 billion to $417 billion). Nationwide, income growth during this same span was 8.3 percent. Michigan became a right-to-work state in December of 2012. The law became effective in March 2013. ForTheRecord says: When Michigan’s right-to-work law was enacted at the end of 2012, unions attacked...

Why EPA Plan Should Concern Fixed-Income Americans the Most Nancy Gravatt, Sr. VP of Communications for the American Mining Association, explains why the President’s new agreement with the Chinese to cut carbon emissions will not fulfill its stated mission, and why the EPA’s new regulations will hit hardest on the pocketbooks of fixed-income Americans.

One of the weird little facts of life that we don’t think about or talk about very much — and really should when we’re talking about taxes, the minimum wage, welfare spending, and other things related to inequality of income and wealth (and go ahead and picture me here manfully resisting the urge to put sneer quotes around “inequality,” as if a uniform distribution of material resources were the natural state of things and not some daft dorm-room fantasy) — is that we pay for everything (really, everything) collectively. Let me show you what I mean. Housing is famously expensive...

Michigan taxpayers and voters were surprised earlier this year as the bill for business subsidies handed out years ago came due higher than expected. It sent legislators scurrying to figure out what to do about the cost of a corporate welfare program begun in 1995. So far, they have come up empty. Nevertheless, there is one loophole that should be explored. It can lower the expense of these incentives while also making Michigan a more inviting place for businesses. Michigan can reduce the generosity of its existing business subsidies by lowering the state’s personal income tax rate. Before 2012, the...

From Bloomberg: U.S. Census Bureau data out Wednesday underscore just how lousy the recovery has been if you aren’t rich. Looking at eight groups of household income selected by Census, only those whose incomes are already high to begin with have seen improvement since 2006, the last full year of expansion before the recession. Households at the 95th and 90th percentiles had larger earnings through 2014, the latest year for which data are available.

Once upon a time, American men used to get something called a "raise." That is when your employer would actually pay you more money. Now, it is true that some people still have experience with this all-but-forgotten practice, but even the ones who do tend not to get pay increases that keep up with price increases. That is why, as David Wessel of the Brookings Institution points out, the typical male worker actually saw his after-inflation pay fall between 1973 and 2014. What is four lost decades between friends? So why, as you can see below, have median male earnings...

SANKUYO, Botswana — Lions have been coming out of the surrounding bush, prowling around homes and a small health clinic, to snatch goats and donkeys from the heart of this village on the edge of one of Africa’s great inland deltas. Elephants, too, are becoming frequent, unwelcome visitors, gobbling up the beans, maize and watermelons that took farmers months to grow. Since Botswana banned trophy hunting two years ago, remote communities like Sankuyo have been at the mercy of growing numbers of wild animals that are hurting livelihoods and driving terrified villagers into their homes at dusk. The hunting ban...