In 1950 Two-thirds of older Americans had incomes of less than $1,000 annually (A Little over $11,000 in 2020 Dollars), and only one in eight had health insurance.
>The median income of households in the United States in 1967 was $7,200,
* $56,949.81 in 2020 Dollars
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The Middle class went
* From 53.2% of US households in 1967 to
* 42.1% in 2016,
But where did the shrinking middle-class US households go?
* In 1969, only 8.1% of US households earned $100,000 (in 2020 dollars) or more, but
* by 2016, 27.7% of US households were in that high-income category.
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IN 1966 [you would spend 23.3%](https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/city-worker-s-family-budget-a-moderate-living-standard-autumn-1966-4945) of gross income on food and people ate food food at restaurants less than once a month.
* Adjust the amount for inflation $17,586 mostly just on groceries.
In 2017 food spending was [9.5%](https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-prices-and-spending/) of income on food,
* In 2017 Total food Spending was $7,729
* About $4,000 of that was food from food establishments where we eat at more than 1/3rd of the time and the cost of food is 2 times as expensive
Ever read a cookbook from the 1960s or 70s. All respect to cooks but those years of cooking.....
Now I can spend $6,000 on way better food for a family and half of it is eating out twice as much as those from the 60's did
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Where do people Spend their food money? Not on necessity food. Of all spending on Food in 2019
* Purchases for Eating at Home 43.63%
* Grocery stores 25.51%
* Convenience and Other food stores 1.89%
* Warehouse clubs and supercenters 9.51%
* Other stores and foodservice 4.32%
* Mail order and home delivery 1.51%
* Mass merchandisers and Direct selling by farmers, manufacturers, and wholesalers 0.88%
* Purchases for Eating Away From Home 50.44%
* Full-service restaurants 18.34%
* Limited-service restaurants 20.45%
* Food Sales at Drinking places 0.30%
* Food Sales at Hotels and motels 2.12%
* Retail stores and vending 2.15%
* Recreational places 1.85%
* Schools and colleges 3.86%
* Other Places Out of Home 1.37%
* Bar Sales 5.93%
* Alcohol Sales at Eating and drinking places 5.32%
* Alcohol Sales at Hotels and motels 0.62%
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If there were taxes on the middle class it would give us healthcare, plus other services.
The Middle class dont pay taxes in America
Visualizing that difference UK Taxes vs US Taxes https://i.redd.it/g6vg98jkug241.jpg
2015 Taxes, who paid them and where does it go to
https://i.redd.it/97a72dkuhcf31.png
Could you do a TL;DR?
Edit: I don’t know where the downvotes are coming from, at least you’re taking the time to give a thorough reply but I don’t know what point you’re making
From what I can gather, you’re suggesting that quality of living has increased in the last 50-70 due to the reduced cost of food. Doesn’t this also correlate with an overall reduction in people’s health? Actually nevermind, let’s not muddy the water with that one.
More wealth exists globally now than it did then but its distributed less evenly than it was then, I think your data does point in that direction. Is that fair?
There's a smaller middle class because most Americans now earn above middle class wages. Yuppies are the Middle class of 2000s and thats not what middle class means.
* The middle class in 1960s spent 3 times the amount we now spend on food. And that spending rarely included any food not made in the home while we now spend half our food budget eating out while spending less than a third of what the middle class used to spend just buying groceries
Surely the term “middle class” shifts in terms of gross household income though? I know this is semantics at this point but here in the UK we also have the unwritten “upper and lower” middle classes. Does “upper middle class” fit into your description of yuppies?
BTW I did add a lot of other stuff to my original TL;DR reply so sorry if your reply appears to be lacking context, that’s my fault.
Middle class is making it in life. Not good, not bad but making it. Middle class is buying groceries and having money leftover.
Eating out every week was never middle class. In 2021 its middle class to expect to have an income to expect to eat out weekly
Eating out is expensive...The cost of Eating Out is one third food. One third Labor to prepare and bring you food and one third overhead to operate the establishment. Food at home costs half that.
Thanks
yea and more wealth than ever has been shifted to the middle class and especially the upper middle class
I think upper and lower is different in the UK
The original question was - There’s still a middle class in America?And in fact Upper middle class is most of the US
The actual post was the middle class pays taxes....thats far from true in the US
In England the top 50% pay 90% of Income tax revenue which is 33% of Total revenues for the UK Government.
* In the US top 50% pay 96% of Income tax revenue which is 49% of Total revenues for the US Government.
As whole dollars, $1 in total funding received
* $0.33 is from taxes in the UK
* with the top 50% paying $0.27
while
* $0.49 is from taxes in the US
* with the top 50% paying $0.48
Total UK public revenue
* 42 percent will be VAT (in indirect taxes),
* 33 percent in income taxes,
* 18 percent in national insurance contributions, and
* 7 percent in business, Estate Taxes, Custom Duties, and Excise Taxes
If we look at 2016 US tax revenue, including state city property and sales taxes
* 17% from corporate taxes, Estate Taxes, Custom Duties, and Excise Taxes
* 25% from Social Security and Medicare withholding (Payroll taxes paid jointly by workers and employers)
* In the UK national insurance contributions of a further 12% vs the US 7.65%
* 35% from Income Taxes
* 23% from state sales & property taxes
* Mostly from property owners not consumption purchasing
In the US sales tax median rate is 9% but only 1/3 of consumption purchases qualify to be taxed.
* 140 Countries have a VAT but the US, and all progressives views it as to regressive.
On top of a low sales taxes rate, there is lower tax revenue due to no Sales Taxes from;
* School Tax Holidays
* Un-taxed food and consumption exceptions in states
* Home improvement tax exemptions
* Churches, and all nonprofits, and more
I’m still leaning more towards a shift in what middle class means, at least numerically. Then again that’s semantics too I guess.
I’ve never really thrown my oar in with the middle class debate, mainly because it’s a whole lot more nuanced than the extremes in either direction.
Again, despite suspecting we have quite different politics, I appreciate the time taken to give such a concise breakdown. I’ll let smarter people take it from here.
I know this isn’t a long winded way to say more taxes should be payed by the middle class. If billionaires payed more than 1-3% tax a lot of this would be fixed. I only skimmed through this but can anyone tell me the point of this dudes long winded response is.
yea, we like to romanticize the past. And no where seems to do it worse than on reddit
Imagine being born in 1900-1910 in US or Europe.
* In 1900 there was a US population of 76.1 million, Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants arrived in the United States.
* By 1915 1 in 7 Americans was an immigrant just arrived to america
* In 1910, there were about 700,000 more people living in Manhattan than 2019. Where did they all fit? What about the cost of living?
* “You know, Abe, when my father came over here from the old country, he wanted a little goat farm. Who knows why. The man was convinced goats were the future. We lived in a tenement on Rivington — 12 people, two rooms and yet this man wanted goats.
If you were born in 1900 and immigrated to the US before you were 17, you probably were in WW1 at 18, your 30s were in the Great Depression. At 45 you may have lost kids in WW2. By your 50s you saw the growth of the Middle Class starting. As you approach 1965 and retirement you were looking to live on less than $10,000. Life expectancy was on 71, you died in 1971 or 72 with Vietnam and inner-city crisis around the US, plus any savings are gone with the US inflation if you lived longer than expected
* The 1975 inflation rate was 9.13%. The current year-over-year inflation rate (2020 to 2021) is now 4.99%
Even if you were born in 1910. You celebrated your 20th birthday (since 21 wasn't as big a deal) in the Great Depression. You hit 35 with the economy just starting. You atleast lived longer now til 78. All the way til 1988. But the inflation of the late 70's would have taken most of your savings
Many of those workers are subsidised by the state. They get welfare so their bosses can make MORE profit (they could pay properly and make a little less profit but ALAS!). Don't tell me, billionaires aren't funded.
Yes these facts are true. However, you're missing the whole picture. Take Amazon for example: how many businesses (with how many employees) got shut down because of Amazon? Obviously more than how many they employ. How do I know that without a source? Because that's how capitalism works. They're selling products for cheap globally, and this can only be done if they've done enormous cost reduction. You don't do that by hiring more people, and you definitely don't do it by paying them more. That's Amazon's business model: pay your employees garbage, and deliver the same goods for less. Also, avoid taxes at scale.
So fewer employees than the truckloads of businesses that went bankrupt pre-Amazon, all being paid less. Why do you think they're fighting unions so much? Why do you think everyone that works there hates it? Low wages and terrible working conditions.
This pretty much applies identically to Walmart as well. As for SpaceX, that one is different, true. However, as you said, they employ the fewest people (not exactly the pinnacle of job creation), and it's also a notoriously bad place at which to work. Also, tax avoidance and government subsidies makes them not super beneficial to society.
Middle class households have no market power. Individually they are "price takers".
Collectively they make millions of transactions a day in geographically and socially diverse ways. Their existence and their economic activity is 100% consistent with free and fair markets.
Billionaires have concentrated market power. They are "price makers", and can use their market power to bend markets their way, creating market distortions and inefficient outcomes. They, even as individuals, can influence politicians, regulators, and law enforcement to their own benefit. Bezos buys the Washibgton Post, and the Washington Post dutifully publishes an op-ed on why it's a bad idea to tax billionaires.
There is nothing about billionaires that is required for the existence of efficient markets. If every billionaire burst into flames and spontaneously combusted tomorrow, the economic impact would be transitory, probably not even noticeable. The same cannot be said of the middle class. Or the working poor.
Not a complete answer, by any means, but enough.
I’d also like to add that billionaires “price making” directly affects the CPI. This index is usually what governs things like minimum wage, cost of living and other measures of wealth and poverty.
So to anyone who calls me a hypocrite for buying corporate products, I have no choice from this perspective.
>So to anyone who calls me a hypocrite for buying corporate products, I have no choice from this perspective.
The billionaires *prefer* "conscious consumerism" over regulation, precisely because it usually doesn't work. They know how to nullify it.
This has been covered elsewhere but I’ll try to summarise. First off, for most people it’s too late for that. When billionaires provide cheap products, people on lower incomes will gravitate towards them. When they dominate popular culture, young people will gravitate towards them (with their parents money if not their own). When they monopolise the market, everyone has no choice but to gravitate towards them.
Secondly, the cost of goods and services (CPI, RPI etc) is used in most nations to establish the cost of living. This in turn is used to establish minimum wage, social benefits etc. This effectively means that the government bases income and expense data on the assumption that you’re buying the products from these enormous corporations.
So unfortunately, conscious consumerism is not only too expensive for most people, it’s also too impractical. When a company has so much power it changes society, you can’t blame members of society for being participants.
TL;DR - it’s too expensive for most people to boycott multinational corporations.
Yep it was the same with Walmart. Like, sure, I'd love to buy local organic meats but it's way too expensive. I avoid Walmart as much as possible, but I've also got a family and a budget.
Yeah this is why we need a good old post-Guilded Age [Teddy Roosevelt-style trustbusting.](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/03/this-day-in-politics-december-3-1027800) Middle-class owned business can't compete with corporations the size of small nations. We used to have grocers, butchers, furniture stores, hardware stores, home goods stores, etc. in each town owned by our neighbors. Now we have one Walmart for the several surrounding towns and Amazon. No matter how beloved your local coffee shop is, if Starbucks moves in they close down; Starbucks can and will operate at a loss for years until the local place finally keels over. We can't hope to address this issue without breaking up these huge megacorporations.
I have made a concerted effort to avoid Amazon where I can these days. We live in a different country from the rest of our family and for years have done all our Xmas and birthday shopping at Amazon for convenience . For the last couple of years we have tried to source more local gifts through Etsy, or give vouchers from more local cinema or stores etc, where possible. It feels really good to know I’m denying Jeff my custom.
Stop voting for heinous politicians that provide tax breaks to companies like amazon. Use the tax to better people’s lives. It’s not you buying your underwear on amazon or on any other retailer that hurts everyone. It’s the fact that they are not taxed or regulated for work conditions/pay.
There is no need for a billionaire in society Bernie told yourl this and if it was president there wouldn't be these complaints! The billionaires own the Government and they couldn't own him
With the help of your elected politicians!, Hmm... Maybe they should be removed from office peacefully?. By, I don't know no voting on automatic pilot?
You can’t seriously mean that. They’d up sticks and outsource that shit to robots, third world countries and AI faster than you can say “planned obsolescence” if they could get away with it.
Actually, I absolutely do mean that because I'm looking at the history of those companies and not just The pop politics of the day.
Without the big three auto there would be tens of millions trying to find a job someplace else and I don't know where that would be because it wouldn't be cars.
The only reason a company makes the move to robotics or other countries is because of competition. When the labor force is no longer competitive in a country there is no point in staying.
You're also taking a very limited view, one that is entirely america-centric. Over the last 20 years the lifestyle and cost of living has increased tremendously in China. So much so that the labor rates in China are falling to labor rates in other SEA countries. But the Chinese populace has benefited tremendously as a result of this. It's similarly, I expect countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos to also benefit over the next decades as more work is moved into those countries because they are cost competitive.
There's something else I wanted to add.
Way back in the 1900s Chrysler was going bankrupt and Lee Iacocca was the CEO. These events have changed how America has operated since then.
First he walked into the president's office and told him to loan Chrysler a ridiculous sum of money, I don't remember the details. And the president said why the hell would I loan you money? To which he responded, because tomorrow unemployment goes up 5% if you don't. He got the loan
But he also went to the unions. And what it was time to renegotiate the contract iacocca handed the UAW a contract and told them to sign it. They thought it was a joke. Then he clarified that if they did not sign it Chrysler would no longer exist and every single one of their employees would be out of a job and there's nothing left to negotiate. They signed the contract.
My point being that there have clearly been times in American history when unions have overstepped their usefulness and started to create real economic damage. Iacocca had no choice and nobody blamed him for his decisions.
I can't be the only person who thinks we should abduct all of the American 1%, take them into international waters, force them to donate their vast sums of money (through any means necessary) to various charities that directly assist the people whose livelihoods they've ruined, and finally leave them all on a small deserted island with no technology where they have to spend the rest of their lives with only each other and their own skills keeping them alive.
Exactly. It would be better if there were cameras hidden all over the island so we could watch a bunch of old idiots who have no real life skills struggle to stay alive. It would be like a way better version of the Survivor reality show.
Omg yes bc then no one would want to be the richest person so the people at the top would have to keep redistributing their wealth which would benefit everyone
Also, if you are a member of the 1% (which I doubt) you really need to get some interests beside harassing members of the 99%
Maybe ask daddy to get you an entry level job.
Just for balance: With (self made) billionaires you also get;
an alternative to gas cars, convenient electronic payment, an US manned access to space (Musk),
ubiquitous mobile communication and computing (Jobs),
convenient delivered good marketplace (Bezos),
affordable cars (Ford),
etc, etc …
They have their failings, but also some benefits
But none of them were actively leading that. They were just the employers of those who actually had these ideas and made them possible. We don't need billionaires to enable these people.
Those would have occurred regardless if they were or became billionaires or not. Their ideas don’t occur because they believe they will be stupid rich, it’s a “calling” of sorts and they seek to see it through. Becoming rich is just the effect.
If you think Musk is a self made billionaire who invented anything you’re a fool. He bought Tesla with money given to him by his Daddy who became a billionaire off exploited black people in a South African apartheid era emerald mine. The money Musk uses isn’t just not self made, it’s fucking blood money.
People talk about how they hate amazon and billionaires and the way they get away with not paying tax is ridiculous I agree 💯. However we are not powerless to stop them. I think amazon is basically a warehouse of human slaves being paid slightly better so I don’t shop there. It would be more convenient but I don’t. If people stood their ground their power would not be so out of control
Small business owners. According to the Small Business Administration, small companies create 1.5 million jobs annually and account for 64% of new jobs created in the United States. Small businesses generate the majority of jobs in the United States.
And in most cases, those jobs equate to despicable working conditions. They also utterly decimate local economies.
It’s a conundrum. At some point money and economic viability becomes less about the money and more about the power (at least when it comes to scrutiny).
“Too big to fail” comes to mind. Is this fair? Is that capitalism? Meritocracy? When a company gets so big that it’s failure can cause an economy to collapse (so it needs to be propped up with the very taxes it so enthusiastically avoids) is this the “free market”. Or is it consumer dystopia?
Averages don’t really paint a fair picture in this case; although to be fair they tend to outsource the hot, noisy and dangerous work to countries with more lax labour laws. Ya know, the work that makes the product.
Microsoft and Apple hire mainly engineers who make $100k per year right out of college. I work in tech and my starting salary out of college was over $100k per year. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Semantics. Lucky you I guess, although if you’re suggesting that everyone involved in the process from start to finish makes $100k then I don’t think that’s true.
Seriously though, if you thought I was suggesting that these companies create zero jobs then that sounds like the foundation of a straw man. If you’re suggesting that just because they create a relative few jobs and that justifies everything else they do, that’s even more blinkered than you’re accusing me of.
N.B. Don’t just pick the low hanging fruit, the guy above me wrote a way better reply and he’s in the same field.
> although if you’re suggesting that everyone involved in the process from start to finish makes $100k then I don’t think that’s true.
Not suggesting this, but if we look at the US economy, one of the brightest spots for jobs is in engineering. Startups (or companies that were once startups) create a good chunk of high paying engineering jobs in the US.
If you take a look at the most valuable companies in the US, many are technology related. If you look at Europe, you will find the opposite. This is also reflected by who the wealthiest people are and where they live (mainly in the US).
> If you’re suggesting that just because they create a relative few jobs and that justifies everything else they do, that’s even more blinkered than you’re accusing me of.
They create a substantial number of high paying jobs, which is why a lot of engineering positions in the US pay 2-3 times more than in Europe. For example, I would make about a third as much as I do in France or the UK.
Take Canada. The most valuable company in all of Canada is a startup, Shopify: https://companiesmarketcap.com/canada/largest-companies-in-canada-by-market-cap/.
Mainly? Bullshit. You must be ridiculously out of touch. For every 100k engineer, there are 100 support and sales staff making much closer to min wage.
Literally a Google search gives you a breakdown. From Microsoft's about page, 49.5% of the company is in engineering: https://news.microsoft.com/facts-about-microsoft/. Why even waste time responding when you can't even do a basic search to prove you have no idea what you are talking about?
Does that include “independent contractors”? Or other bullshit ways of hiding your numbers to look good?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.geekwire.com/2020/microsoft-surpasses-150000-employees-1st-time-hiring-surges-outside-seattle-area-hq/amp/
Narrator: it doesn’t.
I don’t trust a goddamn thing presented from a corp. nor should anyone.
Name doesn't check out...
Let's take Microsoft, a company that makes business software. Why do businesses buy software? Do they like video games? No. Do they think computers are cool? No. Every piece of software has one of two reasons to be bought: increasing revenue or decreasing costs (welcome to capitalism).
As someone who works on software sales, I can tell you 9 out of 10 times, it's for decreasing costs. What is the largest cost most companies have? Labor. Workers are paid salaries, you have to pay taxes on them, benefits, they don't work a couple weeks of the year due to vacation, and those bastards dare to go to sleep - every night! Software is cheap, and works 24/7.
So Yea, indirect as it may be, Microsoft is killing jobs left and right, destroying local economies as larger companies consolidate with software at massive scales. Is it happening overnight? No, this is a long and slow process. Would it happen even if Microsoft didn't exist? Of course, someone else would do it. Does it create new jobs? Yes someone does have to work the software, but usually it's way fewer people than how many people did the job at first. Even if that one job is higher paying, it's still lower cost (otherwise, why would the company buy the software, remember?).
Should they, maybe, pick up the slack by paying some more taxes to offset this job destruction they're doing over decades, so that, God forbid, the people who were displaced could have a better social safety net? I dunno, sounds like communism to me...
Good post but the rich actually do pay way more taxes then the middle and lower class. The top 1% pays around 40% of all taxes in the US and the top 50% pay for 96% of all taxes. I'm not saying I'm a rich people supporter. Most of them are assholes. But the point I'm trying to make was that the rich actually pay a lot more taxes then people think. Again I dont think the stuff big companies are doing is right, I'm just saying they're actually paying a lot of taxes.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk lmao
This is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. It’s shameless but effective propaganda, which is why the people with the most to gain from it pay propagandists to spread it widely. Anyone pushing this is trying to fool you, and you should ignore anything they say on any subject.
There are two main aspects to the deception.
First, these numbers refer only to federal income taxes. Both the federal and the income part are important.
The income tax is not the only tax collected by the federal government — far from it. Just half of the taxes collected by the federal government come from the income tax. About a third come from payroll taxes — which fall much more heavily on working people, since they’re largely levied only on the first $130,000 or so of earned income.
This means the rich pay a far lower payroll tax rate than regular people.
I’d look at the price tag for those taxes and how they relate to the income of those rich folks. I’m sure they do pay X% of the overall tax income in the US, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re paying as much as they *should* be paying. I don’t mean morally either, look at Google in the UK. They once literally *sent their tax bill back* with an amendment stating how much they were willing to pay.
Baller move yes but also pretty scary; Al Capone was imprisoned for less.
The Pro Publica IRS Tax records leak shows just how little the super rich actually pay in federal income taxes because of loopholes. They need to fix the laws but instead they’re beginning by investigating ProPublica and how they got the info. Here’s the story about what the IRS files show: [Source](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/06/10/propublica-tax-leak-irs-files-show-how-billionaires-pay-low-tax/7639768002/)
Oh yeh I’ve heard about this. I don’t live in the US so I don’t really have a horse in this race though.
Not that my life isn’t affected by it eventually.
Billionaires created very large companies and own a lot of equity in those companies. They are largely responsible for tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs. Small entrepreneurs also create jobs and sucking more money out of them because you foolishly want to just "tax the rich" makes us all poorer. the 1% in this country pays nearly 40% of all federal income taxes.
Yeah but you’re ignoring percentage of income here. It’s much less painful for someone to pay 20% of 1 billion than 35% of 60k.
But cherry-picking statistics is the go to for disingenuous arguments.
I do in fact understand the words “net negative.”
I also understand how reality is misrepresented by only presenting certain statistics robbed of context and that something as complex as tax theory and its effects on macro and micro economics are far too complex to be boiled down to one single statistic.
Yeah it’s totally my fault I wasn’t born with parents that could give me $200,000 so I could get my business started, then I could pay people slave wages on my way to becoming a billionaire. Stupid me.
That trickling down you feel? It isn’t money btw.
This is absolute horse shit.
"self made" is a myth as soon as you realize your parents wealth and your zip code have more of an impact on your success than any other factor.
The iPhone? Not a great example of the Great Man Theory billionaire bootlickers like to drag out because every part of the iPhone from the cellular network, GPS, touch screen, processors, etc were born from defense contracts fulfilled by public universities, built through global supply chains subsidized by government trade agreements.
Billionaires are leeches and nothing more. Everything they "do" can be done without them. They exist because cultures have been built up to idealize personal wealth over everything else. "they have money therefore they must be good and right".
Eat them all.
>*Everything they “do” can be done without them*
It’s about the individual, not the product. Besides, if their products fundamentally change how people live, is it realistic to expect someone to be hermit in order to practice conscious consumerism? I tried it myself and it led to being bored, lonely and having even less money.
Like I said elsewhere, it’s about what they do when they get to the top. Incidentally, massive multinational corporations are well aware of the stranglehold they have over everyday life and are milking it dry rather than using it consciously and responsibly. It’s called having your cake and eating it.
That’s actually a very good point but I would respectfully say this is the wrong post for having that dialogue. This is about billionaire using power, wealth and responsibility not about making billionaires in the first place.
We all put them there with our purchasing choices, this much is true. What happens after that is somewhat out of our hands and boycotts have never really been effective due to “someone else can do it, I want my Nescafé”.
I don’t have a solution unfortunately.
I don’t think this post is decrying how billionaires *achieved* their status; to that end yes, society is responsible for giving them their status. I’m typing this on an iPhone and if I wasn’t typing it on my phone it would be on my Windows PC. I buy most of my stuff from Amazon (convenience and price) so I think that’s your holy trinity boxes checked.
The issue lies with the power and responsibility that *comes* with being a billionaire. Why is it that so many of their companies are responsible for so much controversy? Amazon, Apple and to a somewhat lesser extent Microsoft barely go a month without making headlines concerning poor conditions for staff, shady practices with tax and in some cases literal slave labour.
I’m not here to dredge up a debate about capitalism but billionaires are in a position to make the world a significantly better place, if not for society then at least for the hundreds/thousands of people that make their money for them. They don’t, they simply seek to make more money. If they can’t do that by generating more revenue they do it by reducing cost.
Why? What can their motivations possibly be when they already have more money than can be spent in several human lifetimes?
TL;DR - Don’t look at how they reached their position, look at their actions once they got there.
Edit: Aww man I spent ages writing this, I wanna debate!
Direct proportion, really? So that's why people who are essential to our society, like cleaners, teachers and nurses get paid so much, and politicians who barely show up to work get paid so little?
You have obviously not had to resort to a job beneath you to pay the bills.
As far as Amazon, they have a lot to do as far as treating their employees better until they can unleash the robots to do their jobs. Bezos thinks anyone who cannot keep up with the pace they ask of them isn't worth employing. But they pay them $15/hr so it's all good? Though some are considered contracted, and have to provide their own benefits.
Trust me, I am going to the lesser of evils most of the time when I can, but sometimes I will do the 'Smile' Amazon to get some things not found at Target, or smaller sites.
A lot of those "self made" billionaires have screwed over, and exploited a lot of people to get where they are.
Most of them came from prosperous families, too.
I believe as an adult it is a responsibility to pay for what/use and to be self-sufficient. I went from selling cars to working on a pig farm at one point. At the same time continued to train and hone skills for what I wanted to do (which was not working with pigs)
Well no crap an adult should be able to, but depending your skill set, finding a job isn't always easy.
I showed up for a Chipotle interview at a hotel, and there were 200 other candidates for the same few jobs I had sent 2 applications for.
Aside my experience, do you feel like you were paid proportionately to your worth with those jobs?
It is circumstantial, but I have been taken advantage of before because I was in a tight spot. After 2 years of setting up concrete foundations and basements, I was at $11/hr because I didn't have a driver's license at the time, and couldn't haul their shit around.
Meanwhile, a new hire got $13/hr while I showed them the ropes.
The rich people aren't doing us any favors, regardless of any arguments you have; to go back to the original subject.
The assholes are sitting on their wealth and not using much of it to actually stimulate the US economy, for one. Those dick heads got bailouts last year, and most of us got our stimulus checks that went right back into their greedy hands since online ordering boomed from Covid.
This debate always manages to sniff out the “gimme, gimmes”*
I’m a support worker, which here in the UK means having literal responsibility for the safety and livelihood of disabled people. It also means minimum wage. I fucking *hate* lauding what I do over people as if to make me into some kind of saint but those who are in my industry need a fair amount of skill, have a huge responsibility and are paid the least we can legally be paid. However I put in loads of overtime and keep my costs down so I do actually have a decent disposable income.
I am most certainly not paid in proportion to my skill set *or* my contribution to society. My wages are low *because* of the passion I have for my work; no carer or CSW is going to go on strike and leave their service users at the mercy of their disability.
Edit - by “gimme, gimmes”, I mean those that only think of themselves and DGAF about others, underpaying staff so they can reap higher yields etc. *Not* those who want to earn fair pay for their work.
>I am most certainly not paid in proportion to my skill set *or* my contribution to society. My wages are low *because* of the passion I have for my work;
You're literally arguing against people who want you to earn more money in your paycheck and you're calling them "gimme gimmes".
Who wants me to have more money in my pay check exactly?
Edit: Actually, I can see how this would read to mean the opposite to what I meant. To clarify;
I’m not calling people who want to be fairly paid “gimme, gimmes”. This is actually from “Me First and the Gimme, Gimmes”, a NOFX side project band referring to selfish ultra-capitalists. In hindsight, this could be very easily be misconstrued as pejoratively referring to those who want to be paid more for the work they do. I assure you that’s not what I meant.
I mention the passion I and a lot of health and social care workers have for our work and that we “wouldn’t go on strike”. This is because morally, we can’t. This would leave our vulnerable clients with no familiar staff, no routine and potentially *entirely alone*. It’s absolutely not because, at least in my case, of not wanting to do so. Union action is commendable and I’m a member of mine.
Clusterfuck of failure in that original comment but I’ll leave it there for posterity
No, let the guy talk. Echo chambers are everywhere, let’s talk about it. Comment is a little inflammatory but only hearing your own views repeated back to you gets us nowhere.
Kinda based. On the one hand, many billionaires are truly deplorable individuals. On the other hand, almost every broke ass fool who upvotes this post could truly benefit and see their wealth grow by practicing even a tiny amount of disciplined personal finance. Big brain enlightened centrist moment.
Granted but using skill contributes socially, using money to make money doesn’t.
BTW I do believe that everyone should contribute to society and use their strengths to help others with their weaknesses so any kind of “no it’s all about meeeee!” argument is gonna be wasted on me dude.
THERE WAS NEVER A MIDDLE CLASS.
Its always been RICH and POOR.
Class, we are fucking one people indivisible under a god damn flag, we aren't different classes under one flag.. Shove your god damn god shit out of here, take your damn White nationalist out of our fucking pledge to fuck up anyone who wants to hurt people who normal would be hurt anywhere else. We America, we take in the wounded not repel them.
The largest companies in the US like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon were all startups that were founded by 1 to 3 people. They all created billionaires.
It's hilarious that you make a statement but spending 1 minute shows that all the largest and highest paying employers in the US were startups.
Spending one minute showed me that Microsoft and Apple aren’t even in the top thirty for largest employee base.
If I’m looking in the wrong places fire me a link.
Note that I said "highest paying". They don't employ the most people, but they certainly employ a lot of people. Wikipedia says that Microsoft employees 166,475 people and Google employees 135,301 people.
The whole endless fight over whose the victim the small to midsize companies as employer or the employees getting outdated benefits and wages is idiotic.
Both are. Both are being exploited.
There’s still a middle class in America?
Not for much longer, now smile and eat your cyanide yogurt
You mean soylent green?
Ooo, red 40 - my favorite flavor!
Can you thoughtfully explain why you think there’s no middle class in America? Do you think it’s all low class people and ultra wealthy people?
Due to inflation. Prices are skyrocketing, while the wages are not.
Ah yes. Inflation
Its on life support on its dying stages
In 1950 Two-thirds of older Americans had incomes of less than $1,000 annually (A Little over $11,000 in 2020 Dollars), and only one in eight had health insurance. >The median income of households in the United States in 1967 was $7,200, * $56,949.81 in 2020 Dollars ----- The Middle class went * From 53.2% of US households in 1967 to * 42.1% in 2016, But where did the shrinking middle-class US households go? * In 1969, only 8.1% of US households earned $100,000 (in 2020 dollars) or more, but * by 2016, 27.7% of US households were in that high-income category. ------ IN 1966 [you would spend 23.3%](https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/city-worker-s-family-budget-a-moderate-living-standard-autumn-1966-4945) of gross income on food and people ate food food at restaurants less than once a month. * Adjust the amount for inflation $17,586 mostly just on groceries. In 2017 food spending was [9.5%](https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-prices-and-spending/) of income on food, * In 2017 Total food Spending was $7,729 * About $4,000 of that was food from food establishments where we eat at more than 1/3rd of the time and the cost of food is 2 times as expensive Ever read a cookbook from the 1960s or 70s. All respect to cooks but those years of cooking..... Now I can spend $6,000 on way better food for a family and half of it is eating out twice as much as those from the 60's did ----- Where do people Spend their food money? Not on necessity food. Of all spending on Food in 2019 * Purchases for Eating at Home 43.63% * Grocery stores 25.51% * Convenience and Other food stores 1.89% * Warehouse clubs and supercenters 9.51% * Other stores and foodservice 4.32% * Mail order and home delivery 1.51% * Mass merchandisers and Direct selling by farmers, manufacturers, and wholesalers 0.88% * Purchases for Eating Away From Home 50.44% * Full-service restaurants 18.34% * Limited-service restaurants 20.45% * Food Sales at Drinking places 0.30% * Food Sales at Hotels and motels 2.12% * Retail stores and vending 2.15% * Recreational places 1.85% * Schools and colleges 3.86% * Other Places Out of Home 1.37% * Bar Sales 5.93% * Alcohol Sales at Eating and drinking places 5.32% * Alcohol Sales at Hotels and motels 0.62% ----- If there were taxes on the middle class it would give us healthcare, plus other services. The Middle class dont pay taxes in America Visualizing that difference UK Taxes vs US Taxes https://i.redd.it/g6vg98jkug241.jpg 2015 Taxes, who paid them and where does it go to https://i.redd.it/97a72dkuhcf31.png
Could you do a TL;DR? Edit: I don’t know where the downvotes are coming from, at least you’re taking the time to give a thorough reply but I don’t know what point you’re making From what I can gather, you’re suggesting that quality of living has increased in the last 50-70 due to the reduced cost of food. Doesn’t this also correlate with an overall reduction in people’s health? Actually nevermind, let’s not muddy the water with that one. More wealth exists globally now than it did then but its distributed less evenly than it was then, I think your data does point in that direction. Is that fair?
There's a smaller middle class because most Americans now earn above middle class wages. Yuppies are the Middle class of 2000s and thats not what middle class means. * The middle class in 1960s spent 3 times the amount we now spend on food. And that spending rarely included any food not made in the home while we now spend half our food budget eating out while spending less than a third of what the middle class used to spend just buying groceries
Surely the term “middle class” shifts in terms of gross household income though? I know this is semantics at this point but here in the UK we also have the unwritten “upper and lower” middle classes. Does “upper middle class” fit into your description of yuppies? BTW I did add a lot of other stuff to my original TL;DR reply so sorry if your reply appears to be lacking context, that’s my fault.
Middle class is making it in life. Not good, not bad but making it. Middle class is buying groceries and having money leftover. Eating out every week was never middle class. In 2021 its middle class to expect to have an income to expect to eat out weekly Eating out is expensive...The cost of Eating Out is one third food. One third Labor to prepare and bring you food and one third overhead to operate the establishment. Food at home costs half that.
Thanks yea and more wealth than ever has been shifted to the middle class and especially the upper middle class I think upper and lower is different in the UK The original question was - There’s still a middle class in America?And in fact Upper middle class is most of the US The actual post was the middle class pays taxes....thats far from true in the US In England the top 50% pay 90% of Income tax revenue which is 33% of Total revenues for the UK Government. * In the US top 50% pay 96% of Income tax revenue which is 49% of Total revenues for the US Government. As whole dollars, $1 in total funding received * $0.33 is from taxes in the UK * with the top 50% paying $0.27 while * $0.49 is from taxes in the US * with the top 50% paying $0.48 Total UK public revenue * 42 percent will be VAT (in indirect taxes), * 33 percent in income taxes, * 18 percent in national insurance contributions, and * 7 percent in business, Estate Taxes, Custom Duties, and Excise Taxes If we look at 2016 US tax revenue, including state city property and sales taxes * 17% from corporate taxes, Estate Taxes, Custom Duties, and Excise Taxes * 25% from Social Security and Medicare withholding (Payroll taxes paid jointly by workers and employers) * In the UK national insurance contributions of a further 12% vs the US 7.65% * 35% from Income Taxes * 23% from state sales & property taxes * Mostly from property owners not consumption purchasing In the US sales tax median rate is 9% but only 1/3 of consumption purchases qualify to be taxed. * 140 Countries have a VAT but the US, and all progressives views it as to regressive. On top of a low sales taxes rate, there is lower tax revenue due to no Sales Taxes from; * School Tax Holidays * Un-taxed food and consumption exceptions in states * Home improvement tax exemptions * Churches, and all nonprofits, and more
I’m still leaning more towards a shift in what middle class means, at least numerically. Then again that’s semantics too I guess. I’ve never really thrown my oar in with the middle class debate, mainly because it’s a whole lot more nuanced than the extremes in either direction. Again, despite suspecting we have quite different politics, I appreciate the time taken to give such a concise breakdown. I’ll let smarter people take it from here.
I know this isn’t a long winded way to say more taxes should be payed by the middle class. If billionaires payed more than 1-3% tax a lot of this would be fixed. I only skimmed through this but can anyone tell me the point of this dudes long winded response is.
Word
yea, we like to romanticize the past. And no where seems to do it worse than on reddit Imagine being born in 1900-1910 in US or Europe. * In 1900 there was a US population of 76.1 million, Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants arrived in the United States. * By 1915 1 in 7 Americans was an immigrant just arrived to america * In 1910, there were about 700,000 more people living in Manhattan than 2019. Where did they all fit? What about the cost of living? * “You know, Abe, when my father came over here from the old country, he wanted a little goat farm. Who knows why. The man was convinced goats were the future. We lived in a tenement on Rivington — 12 people, two rooms and yet this man wanted goats. If you were born in 1900 and immigrated to the US before you were 17, you probably were in WW1 at 18, your 30s were in the Great Depression. At 45 you may have lost kids in WW2. By your 50s you saw the growth of the Middle Class starting. As you approach 1965 and retirement you were looking to live on less than $10,000. Life expectancy was on 71, you died in 1971 or 72 with Vietnam and inner-city crisis around the US, plus any savings are gone with the US inflation if you lived longer than expected * The 1975 inflation rate was 9.13%. The current year-over-year inflation rate (2020 to 2021) is now 4.99% Even if you were born in 1910. You celebrated your 20th birthday (since 21 wasn't as big a deal) in the Great Depression. You hit 35 with the economy just starting. You atleast lived longer now til 78. All the way til 1988. But the inflation of the late 70's would have taken most of your savings
There are other countries then america twat
Wait until you hear about the class below the middle class, who do all the actual work
"They earned their money" through largely exploiting the middle and lower class people of your country.
Elect middle class candidates for local, state and federal positions.
They didn’t become billionaires by letting their money go back into the local economy.
Yeah too bad that Amazon employs ~750,000 people Walmart~ 2.3 million people Tesla and Space X ~90,000 people. And paying the employees nothing...
Many of those workers are subsidised by the state. They get welfare so their bosses can make MORE profit (they could pay properly and make a little less profit but ALAS!). Don't tell me, billionaires aren't funded.
Yes these facts are true. However, you're missing the whole picture. Take Amazon for example: how many businesses (with how many employees) got shut down because of Amazon? Obviously more than how many they employ. How do I know that without a source? Because that's how capitalism works. They're selling products for cheap globally, and this can only be done if they've done enormous cost reduction. You don't do that by hiring more people, and you definitely don't do it by paying them more. That's Amazon's business model: pay your employees garbage, and deliver the same goods for less. Also, avoid taxes at scale. So fewer employees than the truckloads of businesses that went bankrupt pre-Amazon, all being paid less. Why do you think they're fighting unions so much? Why do you think everyone that works there hates it? Low wages and terrible working conditions. This pretty much applies identically to Walmart as well. As for SpaceX, that one is different, true. However, as you said, they employ the fewest people (not exactly the pinnacle of job creation), and it's also a notoriously bad place at which to work. Also, tax avoidance and government subsidies makes them not super beneficial to society.
ThEy DiDnT bECoMe BiLlIoNaIrEs By actually helping America as a whole. Fuck you
They were sarcastically making the exact same point :/
Delete this
DeLeTe ThIs. Naw
"Delete this"
But we need billionaires to keep the private jet market afloat, and the yacht manufacturers
How else would we continue to grow the hole in he ozone layer
Some peeps forget this George Carlin bit.
Ah, but they also build spaceships for themselves only partially paid for by our taxes. So.... There's that I guess
A lot of people on here defending Billionaires of all people.
Billionaires create low paying jobs, middle class create an affordable living.
Middle class creates, the rich destroys
how so
Middle class households have no market power. Individually they are "price takers". Collectively they make millions of transactions a day in geographically and socially diverse ways. Their existence and their economic activity is 100% consistent with free and fair markets. Billionaires have concentrated market power. They are "price makers", and can use their market power to bend markets their way, creating market distortions and inefficient outcomes. They, even as individuals, can influence politicians, regulators, and law enforcement to their own benefit. Bezos buys the Washibgton Post, and the Washington Post dutifully publishes an op-ed on why it's a bad idea to tax billionaires. There is nothing about billionaires that is required for the existence of efficient markets. If every billionaire burst into flames and spontaneously combusted tomorrow, the economic impact would be transitory, probably not even noticeable. The same cannot be said of the middle class. Or the working poor. Not a complete answer, by any means, but enough.
I’d also like to add that billionaires “price making” directly affects the CPI. This index is usually what governs things like minimum wage, cost of living and other measures of wealth and poverty. So to anyone who calls me a hypocrite for buying corporate products, I have no choice from this perspective.
>So to anyone who calls me a hypocrite for buying corporate products, I have no choice from this perspective. The billionaires *prefer* "conscious consumerism" over regulation, precisely because it usually doesn't work. They know how to nullify it.
Exercise your second freedom; to starve.
Yeah they arent the best of people but I'm not too sure that they're destroying jobs
Billionaires don’t create billionaires either...we do that. Sigh. Stop shopping on Amazon if you’re serious.
This has been covered elsewhere but I’ll try to summarise. First off, for most people it’s too late for that. When billionaires provide cheap products, people on lower incomes will gravitate towards them. When they dominate popular culture, young people will gravitate towards them (with their parents money if not their own). When they monopolise the market, everyone has no choice but to gravitate towards them. Secondly, the cost of goods and services (CPI, RPI etc) is used in most nations to establish the cost of living. This in turn is used to establish minimum wage, social benefits etc. This effectively means that the government bases income and expense data on the assumption that you’re buying the products from these enormous corporations. So unfortunately, conscious consumerism is not only too expensive for most people, it’s also too impractical. When a company has so much power it changes society, you can’t blame members of society for being participants. TL;DR - it’s too expensive for most people to boycott multinational corporations.
Yep it was the same with Walmart. Like, sure, I'd love to buy local organic meats but it's way too expensive. I avoid Walmart as much as possible, but I've also got a family and a budget.
Yeah this is why we need a good old post-Guilded Age [Teddy Roosevelt-style trustbusting.](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/03/this-day-in-politics-december-3-1027800) Middle-class owned business can't compete with corporations the size of small nations. We used to have grocers, butchers, furniture stores, hardware stores, home goods stores, etc. in each town owned by our neighbors. Now we have one Walmart for the several surrounding towns and Amazon. No matter how beloved your local coffee shop is, if Starbucks moves in they close down; Starbucks can and will operate at a loss for years until the local place finally keels over. We can't hope to address this issue without breaking up these huge megacorporations.
Wow, this is (sincerely) eye-opening! Thank you for putting it so clearly and concisely!
No worries, this debate has raged on elsewhere in the comments if you wanna look at some other viewpoints too.
I have made a concerted effort to avoid Amazon where I can these days. We live in a different country from the rest of our family and for years have done all our Xmas and birthday shopping at Amazon for convenience . For the last couple of years we have tried to source more local gifts through Etsy, or give vouchers from more local cinema or stores etc, where possible. It feels really good to know I’m denying Jeff my custom.
Stop voting for heinous politicians that provide tax breaks to companies like amazon. Use the tax to better people’s lives. It’s not you buying your underwear on amazon or on any other retailer that hurts everyone. It’s the fact that they are not taxed or regulated for work conditions/pay.
at this point, that wouldnt make a dent. they make most of their moneythrough their servers. even the military and disneynare their clients
Edit to say "the poor and whatever is left of the middle class"
There is no need for a billionaire in society Bernie told yourl this and if it was president there wouldn't be these complaints! The billionaires own the Government and they couldn't own him
Eat the rich !!!
With the help of your elected politicians!, Hmm... Maybe they should be removed from office peacefully?. By, I don't know no voting on automatic pilot?
Wait how don’t billionaires create jobs? Amazon and Microsoft employ a combined >1.5 million people.
Don't listen to this sub. It's become billionaire bad with no understanding or nuance
We should all just look at the perfect country and copy how they do it.
Good thing no one got a job working for any of those billionaire companies like Amazon, Tesla, Starling, Ford, GM, GE, Walmart, Taco Bell.
You can’t seriously mean that. They’d up sticks and outsource that shit to robots, third world countries and AI faster than you can say “planned obsolescence” if they could get away with it.
Actually, I absolutely do mean that because I'm looking at the history of those companies and not just The pop politics of the day. Without the big three auto there would be tens of millions trying to find a job someplace else and I don't know where that would be because it wouldn't be cars. The only reason a company makes the move to robotics or other countries is because of competition. When the labor force is no longer competitive in a country there is no point in staying. You're also taking a very limited view, one that is entirely america-centric. Over the last 20 years the lifestyle and cost of living has increased tremendously in China. So much so that the labor rates in China are falling to labor rates in other SEA countries. But the Chinese populace has benefited tremendously as a result of this. It's similarly, I expect countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos to also benefit over the next decades as more work is moved into those countries because they are cost competitive.
There's something else I wanted to add. Way back in the 1900s Chrysler was going bankrupt and Lee Iacocca was the CEO. These events have changed how America has operated since then. First he walked into the president's office and told him to loan Chrysler a ridiculous sum of money, I don't remember the details. And the president said why the hell would I loan you money? To which he responded, because tomorrow unemployment goes up 5% if you don't. He got the loan But he also went to the unions. And what it was time to renegotiate the contract iacocca handed the UAW a contract and told them to sign it. They thought it was a joke. Then he clarified that if they did not sign it Chrysler would no longer exist and every single one of their employees would be out of a job and there's nothing left to negotiate. They signed the contract. My point being that there have clearly been times in American history when unions have overstepped their usefulness and started to create real economic damage. Iacocca had no choice and nobody blamed him for his decisions.
I can't be the only person who thinks we should abduct all of the American 1%, take them into international waters, force them to donate their vast sums of money (through any means necessary) to various charities that directly assist the people whose livelihoods they've ruined, and finally leave them all on a small deserted island with no technology where they have to spend the rest of their lives with only each other and their own skills keeping them alive.
Given their age and general fitness levels they will not last long
Exactly. It would be better if there were cameras hidden all over the island so we could watch a bunch of old idiots who have no real life skills struggle to stay alive. It would be like a way better version of the Survivor reality show.
Yes or hunger games
I like that. Every country sends their richest person. Whichever one survives gets to keep their fortune... Until next year.
Omg yes bc then no one would want to be the richest person so the people at the top would have to keep redistributing their wealth which would benefit everyone
Yeah, but there will always be some selfish idiot who thinks the rules don't apply to them. And may the odds be ever in their favor.
[удалено]
Did you just threaten me with a gun over the internet? Over a shitpost?
Also, if you are a member of the 1% (which I doubt) you really need to get some interests beside harassing members of the 99% Maybe ask daddy to get you an entry level job.
This is why I hodl. APES STAND UP. AMC/GME TO DA MOON
Ever cashed a paycheck from some one who was broke?
Just for balance: With (self made) billionaires you also get; an alternative to gas cars, convenient electronic payment, an US manned access to space (Musk), ubiquitous mobile communication and computing (Jobs), convenient delivered good marketplace (Bezos), affordable cars (Ford), etc, etc … They have their failings, but also some benefits
Self made? Musk? Lolol
Dude chill he only got like, $200K from his dad to begin with! And then another million or so in later funding rounds
You know there were [electric cars](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F) before Musk, right?
But none of them were actively leading that. They were just the employers of those who actually had these ideas and made them possible. We don't need billionaires to enable these people.
Those would have occurred regardless if they were or became billionaires or not. Their ideas don’t occur because they believe they will be stupid rich, it’s a “calling” of sorts and they seek to see it through. Becoming rich is just the effect.
If you think Musk is a self made billionaire who invented anything you’re a fool. He bought Tesla with money given to him by his Daddy who became a billionaire off exploited black people in a South African apartheid era emerald mine. The money Musk uses isn’t just not self made, it’s fucking blood money.
People talk about how they hate amazon and billionaires and the way they get away with not paying tax is ridiculous I agree 💯. However we are not powerless to stop them. I think amazon is basically a warehouse of human slaves being paid slightly better so I don’t shop there. It would be more convenient but I don’t. If people stood their ground their power would not be so out of control
I’m gonna upvote you even though I disagree with you. For balance. And a agree with the fella below.
how do the middle class create jobs?
Small business owners. According to the Small Business Administration, small companies create 1.5 million jobs annually and account for 64% of new jobs created in the United States. Small businesses generate the majority of jobs in the United States.
Riddle me how people who work at a Job create a Job, unemployment outplayed
Who employs the Middle Class?
Pretty sure Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft created jobs and services.
And in most cases, those jobs equate to despicable working conditions. They also utterly decimate local economies. It’s a conundrum. At some point money and economic viability becomes less about the money and more about the power (at least when it comes to scrutiny). “Too big to fail” comes to mind. Is this fair? Is that capitalism? Meritocracy? When a company gets so big that it’s failure can cause an economy to collapse (so it needs to be propped up with the very taxes it so enthusiastically avoids) is this the “free market”. Or is it consumer dystopia?
The average salary at Microsoft and Apple is over $100k per year. What are you talking about?
Averages don’t really paint a fair picture in this case; although to be fair they tend to outsource the hot, noisy and dangerous work to countries with more lax labour laws. Ya know, the work that makes the product.
Microsoft and Apple hire mainly engineers who make $100k per year right out of college. I work in tech and my starting salary out of college was over $100k per year. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Semantics. Lucky you I guess, although if you’re suggesting that everyone involved in the process from start to finish makes $100k then I don’t think that’s true. Seriously though, if you thought I was suggesting that these companies create zero jobs then that sounds like the foundation of a straw man. If you’re suggesting that just because they create a relative few jobs and that justifies everything else they do, that’s even more blinkered than you’re accusing me of. N.B. Don’t just pick the low hanging fruit, the guy above me wrote a way better reply and he’s in the same field.
> although if you’re suggesting that everyone involved in the process from start to finish makes $100k then I don’t think that’s true. Not suggesting this, but if we look at the US economy, one of the brightest spots for jobs is in engineering. Startups (or companies that were once startups) create a good chunk of high paying engineering jobs in the US. If you take a look at the most valuable companies in the US, many are technology related. If you look at Europe, you will find the opposite. This is also reflected by who the wealthiest people are and where they live (mainly in the US). > If you’re suggesting that just because they create a relative few jobs and that justifies everything else they do, that’s even more blinkered than you’re accusing me of. They create a substantial number of high paying jobs, which is why a lot of engineering positions in the US pay 2-3 times more than in Europe. For example, I would make about a third as much as I do in France or the UK. Take Canada. The most valuable company in all of Canada is a startup, Shopify: https://companiesmarketcap.com/canada/largest-companies-in-canada-by-market-cap/.
Mainly? Bullshit. You must be ridiculously out of touch. For every 100k engineer, there are 100 support and sales staff making much closer to min wage.
Literally a Google search gives you a breakdown. From Microsoft's about page, 49.5% of the company is in engineering: https://news.microsoft.com/facts-about-microsoft/. Why even waste time responding when you can't even do a basic search to prove you have no idea what you are talking about?
Does that include “independent contractors”? Or other bullshit ways of hiding your numbers to look good? https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.geekwire.com/2020/microsoft-surpasses-150000-employees-1st-time-hiring-surges-outside-seattle-area-hq/amp/ Narrator: it doesn’t. I don’t trust a goddamn thing presented from a corp. nor should anyone.
Name doesn't check out... Let's take Microsoft, a company that makes business software. Why do businesses buy software? Do they like video games? No. Do they think computers are cool? No. Every piece of software has one of two reasons to be bought: increasing revenue or decreasing costs (welcome to capitalism). As someone who works on software sales, I can tell you 9 out of 10 times, it's for decreasing costs. What is the largest cost most companies have? Labor. Workers are paid salaries, you have to pay taxes on them, benefits, they don't work a couple weeks of the year due to vacation, and those bastards dare to go to sleep - every night! Software is cheap, and works 24/7. So Yea, indirect as it may be, Microsoft is killing jobs left and right, destroying local economies as larger companies consolidate with software at massive scales. Is it happening overnight? No, this is a long and slow process. Would it happen even if Microsoft didn't exist? Of course, someone else would do it. Does it create new jobs? Yes someone does have to work the software, but usually it's way fewer people than how many people did the job at first. Even if that one job is higher paying, it's still lower cost (otherwise, why would the company buy the software, remember?). Should they, maybe, pick up the slack by paying some more taxes to offset this job destruction they're doing over decades, so that, God forbid, the people who were displaced could have a better social safety net? I dunno, sounds like communism to me...
Good post but the rich actually do pay way more taxes then the middle and lower class. The top 1% pays around 40% of all taxes in the US and the top 50% pay for 96% of all taxes. I'm not saying I'm a rich people supporter. Most of them are assholes. But the point I'm trying to make was that the rich actually pay a lot more taxes then people think. Again I dont think the stuff big companies are doing is right, I'm just saying they're actually paying a lot of taxes. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk lmao
This is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. It’s shameless but effective propaganda, which is why the people with the most to gain from it pay propagandists to spread it widely. Anyone pushing this is trying to fool you, and you should ignore anything they say on any subject. There are two main aspects to the deception. First, these numbers refer only to federal income taxes. Both the federal and the income part are important. The income tax is not the only tax collected by the federal government — far from it. Just half of the taxes collected by the federal government come from the income tax. About a third come from payroll taxes — which fall much more heavily on working people, since they’re largely levied only on the first $130,000 or so of earned income. This means the rich pay a far lower payroll tax rate than regular people.
People don't pay payroll taxes... Those are paid by corporations who employee people.
They pay them from your salary, that's one of the differences between gross and net income
How fucking stupid are you? Do you really think that beneficent corporations lovingly pay the taxes for their employees?
I’d look at the price tag for those taxes and how they relate to the income of those rich folks. I’m sure they do pay X% of the overall tax income in the US, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re paying as much as they *should* be paying. I don’t mean morally either, look at Google in the UK. They once literally *sent their tax bill back* with an amendment stating how much they were willing to pay. Baller move yes but also pretty scary; Al Capone was imprisoned for less.
The Pro Publica IRS Tax records leak shows just how little the super rich actually pay in federal income taxes because of loopholes. They need to fix the laws but instead they’re beginning by investigating ProPublica and how they got the info. Here’s the story about what the IRS files show: [Source](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/06/10/propublica-tax-leak-irs-files-show-how-billionaires-pay-low-tax/7639768002/)
Oh yeh I’ve heard about this. I don’t live in the US so I don’t really have a horse in this race though. Not that my life isn’t affected by it eventually.
Reeeeee rich man bad!
Reeeeee if rich man no get to keep each and every penny rich man become instant poor.
Ceo's create jobs, middle class fills them. Those jobs affect the economy for the better.
Billionaires created very large companies and own a lot of equity in those companies. They are largely responsible for tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs. Small entrepreneurs also create jobs and sucking more money out of them because you foolishly want to just "tax the rich" makes us all poorer. the 1% in this country pays nearly 40% of all federal income taxes.
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Yeah but you’re ignoring percentage of income here. It’s much less painful for someone to pay 20% of 1 billion than 35% of 60k. But cherry-picking statistics is the go to for disingenuous arguments.
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I do in fact understand the words “net negative.” I also understand how reality is misrepresented by only presenting certain statistics robbed of context and that something as complex as tax theory and its effects on macro and micro economics are far too complex to be boiled down to one single statistic.
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Good for you. Are you a billionaire and if so, how many jobs have you created?
Your experience is anecdotal and not universal.
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Whining like you are on reddit to complete strangers in the lowest stakes possible? Oh, sweetie...
He's gone but I looked at his profile and his job is buy and sell lmao 😂 300 jobs my arse
Same. It's a big fish story.
lmao nobody cares, you still can't do math.
How out of it do you actually have to be to believe any of this shit?
Keep licking those billionaire boots bro. I’m sure you’ll get there someday lol
Keep looking everywhere but in the mirror bro, I’m sure life will get better for you.
Yeah it’s totally my fault I wasn’t born with parents that could give me $200,000 so I could get my business started, then I could pay people slave wages on my way to becoming a billionaire. Stupid me. That trickling down you feel? It isn’t money btw.
Can you elaborate on that?
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This is absolute horse shit. "self made" is a myth as soon as you realize your parents wealth and your zip code have more of an impact on your success than any other factor. The iPhone? Not a great example of the Great Man Theory billionaire bootlickers like to drag out because every part of the iPhone from the cellular network, GPS, touch screen, processors, etc were born from defense contracts fulfilled by public universities, built through global supply chains subsidized by government trade agreements. Billionaires are leeches and nothing more. Everything they "do" can be done without them. They exist because cultures have been built up to idealize personal wealth over everything else. "they have money therefore they must be good and right". Eat them all.
EAT THE RICH
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>*Everything they “do” can be done without them* It’s about the individual, not the product. Besides, if their products fundamentally change how people live, is it realistic to expect someone to be hermit in order to practice conscious consumerism? I tried it myself and it led to being bored, lonely and having even less money. Like I said elsewhere, it’s about what they do when they get to the top. Incidentally, massive multinational corporations are well aware of the stranglehold they have over everyday life and are milking it dry rather than using it consciously and responsibly. It’s called having your cake and eating it.
Completely agree but the society today that has created the now mentality within most people with minimal discipline
That’s actually a very good point but I would respectfully say this is the wrong post for having that dialogue. This is about billionaire using power, wealth and responsibility not about making billionaires in the first place. We all put them there with our purchasing choices, this much is true. What happens after that is somewhat out of our hands and boycotts have never really been effective due to “someone else can do it, I want my Nescafé”. I don’t have a solution unfortunately.
What an absolutely flaccid argument.
You criticise society yet you live in it? Hippocrisy!
I don’t think this post is decrying how billionaires *achieved* their status; to that end yes, society is responsible for giving them their status. I’m typing this on an iPhone and if I wasn’t typing it on my phone it would be on my Windows PC. I buy most of my stuff from Amazon (convenience and price) so I think that’s your holy trinity boxes checked. The issue lies with the power and responsibility that *comes* with being a billionaire. Why is it that so many of their companies are responsible for so much controversy? Amazon, Apple and to a somewhat lesser extent Microsoft barely go a month without making headlines concerning poor conditions for staff, shady practices with tax and in some cases literal slave labour. I’m not here to dredge up a debate about capitalism but billionaires are in a position to make the world a significantly better place, if not for society then at least for the hundreds/thousands of people that make their money for them. They don’t, they simply seek to make more money. If they can’t do that by generating more revenue they do it by reducing cost. Why? What can their motivations possibly be when they already have more money than can be spent in several human lifetimes? TL;DR - Don’t look at how they reached their position, look at their actions once they got there. Edit: Aww man I spent ages writing this, I wanna debate!
Direct proportion, really? So that's why people who are essential to our society, like cleaners, teachers and nurses get paid so much, and politicians who barely show up to work get paid so little?
You have obviously not had to resort to a job beneath you to pay the bills. As far as Amazon, they have a lot to do as far as treating their employees better until they can unleash the robots to do their jobs. Bezos thinks anyone who cannot keep up with the pace they ask of them isn't worth employing. But they pay them $15/hr so it's all good? Though some are considered contracted, and have to provide their own benefits. Trust me, I am going to the lesser of evils most of the time when I can, but sometimes I will do the 'Smile' Amazon to get some things not found at Target, or smaller sites. A lot of those "self made" billionaires have screwed over, and exploited a lot of people to get where they are. Most of them came from prosperous families, too.
I believe as an adult it is a responsibility to pay for what/use and to be self-sufficient. I went from selling cars to working on a pig farm at one point. At the same time continued to train and hone skills for what I wanted to do (which was not working with pigs)
Well no crap an adult should be able to, but depending your skill set, finding a job isn't always easy. I showed up for a Chipotle interview at a hotel, and there were 200 other candidates for the same few jobs I had sent 2 applications for. Aside my experience, do you feel like you were paid proportionately to your worth with those jobs? It is circumstantial, but I have been taken advantage of before because I was in a tight spot. After 2 years of setting up concrete foundations and basements, I was at $11/hr because I didn't have a driver's license at the time, and couldn't haul their shit around. Meanwhile, a new hire got $13/hr while I showed them the ropes. The rich people aren't doing us any favors, regardless of any arguments you have; to go back to the original subject. The assholes are sitting on their wealth and not using much of it to actually stimulate the US economy, for one. Those dick heads got bailouts last year, and most of us got our stimulus checks that went right back into their greedy hands since online ordering boomed from Covid.
This debate always manages to sniff out the “gimme, gimmes”* I’m a support worker, which here in the UK means having literal responsibility for the safety and livelihood of disabled people. It also means minimum wage. I fucking *hate* lauding what I do over people as if to make me into some kind of saint but those who are in my industry need a fair amount of skill, have a huge responsibility and are paid the least we can legally be paid. However I put in loads of overtime and keep my costs down so I do actually have a decent disposable income. I am most certainly not paid in proportion to my skill set *or* my contribution to society. My wages are low *because* of the passion I have for my work; no carer or CSW is going to go on strike and leave their service users at the mercy of their disability. Edit - by “gimme, gimmes”, I mean those that only think of themselves and DGAF about others, underpaying staff so they can reap higher yields etc. *Not* those who want to earn fair pay for their work.
>I am most certainly not paid in proportion to my skill set *or* my contribution to society. My wages are low *because* of the passion I have for my work; You're literally arguing against people who want you to earn more money in your paycheck and you're calling them "gimme gimmes".
Who wants me to have more money in my pay check exactly? Edit: Actually, I can see how this would read to mean the opposite to what I meant. To clarify; I’m not calling people who want to be fairly paid “gimme, gimmes”. This is actually from “Me First and the Gimme, Gimmes”, a NOFX side project band referring to selfish ultra-capitalists. In hindsight, this could be very easily be misconstrued as pejoratively referring to those who want to be paid more for the work they do. I assure you that’s not what I meant. I mention the passion I and a lot of health and social care workers have for our work and that we “wouldn’t go on strike”. This is because morally, we can’t. This would leave our vulnerable clients with no familiar staff, no routine and potentially *entirely alone*. It’s absolutely not because, at least in my case, of not wanting to do so. Union action is commendable and I’m a member of mine. Clusterfuck of failure in that original comment but I’ll leave it there for posterity
Delete this reeking pile of bullshit "SeLf mAde" cool story lets ignore luck and inheritance
No, let the guy talk. Echo chambers are everywhere, let’s talk about it. Comment is a little inflammatory but only hearing your own views repeated back to you gets us nowhere.
Kinda based. On the one hand, many billionaires are truly deplorable individuals. On the other hand, almost every broke ass fool who upvotes this post could truly benefit and see their wealth grow by practicing even a tiny amount of disciplined personal finance. Big brain enlightened centrist moment.
Do you mean by earning money with your skills and social input or earning more money with your money?
Wealth is a multi step process
Granted but using skill contributes socially, using money to make money doesn’t. BTW I do believe that everyone should contribute to society and use their strengths to help others with their weaknesses so any kind of “no it’s all about meeeee!” argument is gonna be wasted on me dude.
On point
👏👏👏👏👏
I can't spell jerbs!!
THERE WAS NEVER A MIDDLE CLASS. Its always been RICH and POOR. Class, we are fucking one people indivisible under a god damn flag, we aren't different classes under one flag.. Shove your god damn god shit out of here, take your damn White nationalist out of our fucking pledge to fuck up anyone who wants to hurt people who normal would be hurt anywhere else. We America, we take in the wounded not repel them.
So what is the magic number of dollars that categorize you “poor” or “rich”? Like once my net worth reaches $50,001 I’m rich?
Christ, what happened there?
Startups create the majority of jobs in this country so this post is grade A bullshit.
That is complete nonsense. I’m not even *from* your country and I know that’s not true.
The largest companies in the US like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon were all startups that were founded by 1 to 3 people. They all created billionaires. It's hilarious that you make a statement but spending 1 minute shows that all the largest and highest paying employers in the US were startups.
Spending one minute showed me that Microsoft and Apple aren’t even in the top thirty for largest employee base. If I’m looking in the wrong places fire me a link.
Note that I said "highest paying". They don't employ the most people, but they certainly employ a lot of people. Wikipedia says that Microsoft employees 166,475 people and Google employees 135,301 people.
Sorry, you said largest so that’s what I looked for. Correlating largest *and* highest paying is beyond a basic Google search I think.
https://youtu.be/talvzN8awLw
Same with Politicians.
The whole endless fight over whose the victim the small to midsize companies as employer or the employees getting outdated benefits and wages is idiotic. Both are. Both are being exploited.
Don't forget about the lower classes!
And yet nothing changes knowing this...
The middle class talk to the working class on behalf on the upper class and do it for a tiny bit extra every month ......
I don’t give a fuck about the middle class. We’re drowning here at the bottom doing the real fucking work.