Uh, no.
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t going to resign.
Posted on 09/02/2013 3:55:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
One potential benefit that can come from last week’s March on Washington 2013, which commemorated the 1963 civil rights event, is the various data publicized about the current state of affairs of black America vis a vis the rest of the country.
In particular, it has been an eye opener for many to see how little progress has been made over the last 50 years in closing the economic gap, on average, between blacks and whites.
I call shining light on the data a “potential” benefit because there is no benefit if real remedial action is not taken to improve the state of affairs.
According to data from the Pew Research Center, the gap in median household income in 2011 between blacks and whites was about $27,000 - $39,760 black median income and $67,175 white median income. In 1967, this income gap between blacks and whites was about $19,000. So it’s grown by $8,000.
The gap in median household net worth between blacks and whites in 2011 - $91,405 white median net worth and $6,446 black net worth – was about $85,000. This was up from a difference of about $75,000 in 1984, the first time this data was collected.
As we approach 50 years from passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, isn’t it time for some new thinking? Shouldn’t black Americans be asking what can be done to achieve some real economic progress?
There’s, of course, many factors dragging blacks down economically. But one very straightforward policy change can be made that would have immediate wealth creation benefits for blacks and all low income Americans.
It’s something I’ve written about many times. Personal retirement accounts.
According to a Pew Research Center study on wealth gaps between ethnic groups, in 2009, 80 percent of whites had an IRA, Keogh, 401(k) or thrift savings account. Only 41 percent of blacks did.
One can argue that with far less income available, blacks don’t have the resources to invest long term in these wealth-building accounts. And because so many don’t do it, blacks tend to understand these savings plans less, which creates discomfort and bias on their part against doing it.
These are exactly the reasons why low income Americans should be given the option to opt out of social security and use the funds they are forced to pay in taxes to invest in a genuine wealth-building retirement account.
Let’s recall that Social Security is not an investment program. It’s simply a tax on current workers that’s used to make payments to current retirees.
Social Security takes 12.4 percent annually from just about every income earner. The employee pays 6.2 percent directly, and their employer contributes the other 6.2 percent.
In 2010, the Wall Street Journal published a study done by analysts William Shipman and Peter Ferrara that analyzed what an average-income earning couple would have accumulated over a 45-year working life if they could have put that 12.4 percent of their income in an investment account instead of paying Social Security taxes.
They assumed the couple retired in 2009 right after the stock market crashed and they used actual historical stock performance data for the 45 years from 1965. Even with the big market drop, their savings could have paid out about 75 percent more than they would have gotten from Social Security.
We should also be aware that Social Security taxes are paid just up to $113,700 in income. After that you are free. So Social Security is clearly biased against wealth accumulation of lower income individuals.
We, of course, can expect that liberals will start screaming if anyone proposes to allow low-income earners any choice - even an option - to get out of social security and invest in a retirement account.
Black Americans can listen to them and watch their income and wealth stagnate for another 50 years, while the wealth gap continues to grow.
Let me guess....take more from someone else?
Building wealth begins with wealth creation which is a concept that liberals simply do not understand.
Uh, no.
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t going to resign.
I have to laugh at the unmitigated liberal gall of this statement. SS is a mix of a defined benefit and a defined contribution plan. You pay an amount based on your payroll amount, and the amount you receive at retirement is based on that amount. Of course, there is a basic minimum where contributions that have amounted to pennies will still net the retiree something. Were SS to keep on taxing income with no limit, the logical outcome would be no limit on SS income based on contributions, right? No, the poor would find another way to say "it isn't fair."
The truth is that these leeches want it both ways. They want little or no contributions and equal, high payouts. Impossible liberal scat. Sure, this author wants the "opt out" ability for low-incomers. More money to save....more money to piss away. In the end, they will clamor for a SS benefit even though they didn't contribute.
It is all a moot point anyway. Our pResident is making sure that the finances of this country will be impossibly screwed no matter what one does. The only recourse will be to confiscate ALL retirement accounts and assets and 'redistribute' them.
There are a lot of things. Something nobody ever mention is property ownership. In my town, blacks own a lot of the apparently abandoned properties. They don’t seem to realize that maintaining them and even improving them adds to the value of land inthat neighborhood and therefore will give a much better yield when try or their heirs sell it. Instead, black absentee landlords let their properties - which they abandoned to move to more opportunities in bigger cities - fester and turn into eyesores and health and crime hazards, which in turn drag down the assessed values in of the entire neighborhood.
Another problem is that very often the titles are not clear, since some of these properties were obtained during Reconstruction or by somewhat indirect means (gift, for example) and the transmission of ownership was unclear. Combined with the fact that many of the possible heirs are not the product of marriage (often for several generations) and would have trouble proving their claims, this sometimes makes it nearly impossible to sell the property.
Finally, there is attitude: I actually heard one person complaining that a small scale property developer was buying a lot in the poorer black neighborhood and was going to build a relatively expensive house on it - and people were complaining because this would raise the property values! In other words, both blacks and their leftist white evil geniuses see rising values as a bad thing.
So I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done among blacks with the whole concept of wealth and what they can do to increase it, since they are not even tapping what they have.
Yeah they do, but property taxes go up if you improve.
The only way!! We have a static economic pie in this country under JugEars so the only way blacks get more cash is from the taxpayers meaning whites, Asians, Hispanics. Most blacks who pay a decent amount of taxes are gubbermint workers and they don’t actually pay taxes. Come tax time they are just rebating back part of what the taxpayers paid them in the first place
Hispanics do slave away in the productive sectors such as agriculture, hotels, restaurants etc etc. They may be leagl or illegal but Hispanics tend to be creatures of the private sector. Blacks are creatures of the public sector whether it is getting various forms of welfare, medicaid, SSI checks 0bamaFones, teaching jobs, or do-nothing gubbermint jobs
Not only do they not understand wealth creation, they despise it.
The proposed investment vehicle WAS and IS the Government TSP. If it is good enough for both Military and Government workers, then it is good enough for everyone else. TSP is probably the safest investment available, and Bush proposed that your investment from Social Security would be protected 100% from Loss and you would get the entire Gain!
Finally, there is attitude: I actually heard one person complaining that a small scale property developer was buying a lot in the poorer black neighborhood and was going to build a relatively expensive house on it - and people were complaining because this would raise the property values! In other words, both blacks and their leftist white evil geniuses see rising values as a bad thing.
Actually I can understand their attitudes about raising property values especially on a low or fixed income. The G-D Property appraisers and Property Taxes.
Property taxes are among the most damaging of all taxes as far as I am concerned. Why? Because if a person owns property and they care about it and nurture it they are also a target! They can’t move and take it with them, if they own a family business or a farm they must stay with it and become a ‘golden goose’ for the local taxing authorities.
School district needs more money— raise property taxes, Hospital needs more money — raise taxes and everything else too, town or city needs more money -— raise property taxes. Oh you are retired or laid off -— so Sorry about that, here’s your new tax bill, go sell something to pay it or we’ll steal your property and sell it for penny’s on the dollar.
Okay, I’m done ranting.
Most of the people for whom taxes would go up (if they are actually living in these run-down properties) are elderly and exempted from increases above a certain percent. And for absentee landlords, the increase wouldn’t be that much, relatively speaking, assuming they’re paying their taxes now (many are not, and then howl if the city tries to seize the properties).
But most of all, they have no concept that investing in something increases its value, and while this may mean higher taxes, that’s also a cost of increasing the value; furthermore, worrying about taxes would actually give them some reason to become involved in their neighborhood and city, instead of just living there passively and complaining.
Property taxes are generally way too high, but the other problem is that we are pretty passive about it. Paying these taxes should fire people up to demand a better accounting and better results from the city or entity doing the taxing, but instead we sit there quietly. I also think it should result in things like Prop 13 in California, which prevented the state from using property owners as a piggy bank (although of course California, after a few years, did not cut back expenditures but simply found other ways of dipping into people’s pockets).
In fact, the people who pay least in property taxes are often the ones who are demanding the most in services, and they get away with this because they don’t realize that the money has got to come from somewhere. Having these property owners discover that would be a very positive thing.
Excuse me! But eff you! You can’t keep givin people free chit and expect them to work for more! They’ll just want more free chit! Also, morals like “Thou Shalt Not Steal” hinders this behavior also!
Kaslin, darling, you know that wasn’t directed at you luv...
I generally like Ms. Parker, but this column fails on several levels. First, it compares the dollar differential in wealth and income, decades apart, without adjusting for inflation. This allows for falsely making the reverse claim from what the data actually shows.
Second, since social security pay-outs have a low ceiling, to remove the cap on pay-in is simply to create one more income redistribution program, without admitting that that’s what you’re about and doing.
policies won’t build wealth, it just transfers it. Effort, energy, risk, hard work and success builds wealth which is why there is little wealth in the “black community”.
Yes, the fight against gentrification of neighborhoods is an old saw that keeps black assets depressed. You don’t generally see the same battle fought in poor white neighborhoods, perhaps because skin color doesn’t help to demonstrate the turnover in residents—obscuring that it was the old-neighborhood property owners with the greatest opportunity to benefit from the change.
lol every year they send someone out to assess the property. I built my own house in stages and it is not finished inside. Anyway, I stopped doing projects outdoors like the porches I poured foundations for.
partly out of stubbornness because they will just steal more money from me.
Exactly. It's usually led by well-off white leftists, and blacks are absolute putty in their hands and never reflect on the implications of any of this.
It's partly because they haven't even the most basic understanding of economics and partly because the left does what everybody likes more than anything else nowadays: it makes them feel that they are being victimized in some way and that somehow the fact that somebody else is making money is unfair to them - even though rising values would ultimately benefit them. But this is something that in turn goes back to point one - complete ignorance of basic economics.
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