Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Income Inequality in the United States

By Matthew Dunn
                The popular and critically acclaimed television series “Mad Men” on AMC, brought viewers into the world of the advertising industry in the 1960s.  The protagonist of the series, Don Draper, is a successful executive who is well known for his brilliant advertising messages.  Although Draper is often presented as discontent with his personal life, he does have all the genuine markers of wealth that classify someone in the 1% of wealthiest Americans.  When the show begins in 1960, he is living with his beautiful wife and two children in the wealthy suburb of Ossining which is Westchester, New York.  Don lives in a very large house, has two cars, sends his children to excellent schools, has a full time nanny (even though his wife does not work), and even pays for his wife’s equestrian hobby.  In Don’ business life he frequently goes to the finest restaurants and travels the nation.  He manages to do all of this while having an alcohol dependency and several mistresses. 
                The fictional Don Draper lived through what is called by some as “The Golden Age of Capitalism”.  That is that business thrived, unemployment was low, people had money to spend, and economic crises seemed a thing of the past.  With all the new wealth that was created during this time, the United States government decided that it was best that those with the most would pay a very large share of their earnings in income taxes.  Between 1960 and 1970 the marginal tax rate for the highest incomes was between 70% and 90%.[i]  So even with 90% of his earnings going to taxes, Don Draper still had the ability to live quite the lifestyle. 
                However, in the 21st century, income tax rates have gone down significantly.  During the 1980’s marginal tax rates declined significantly for the wealthiest Americans.  Between 1980-1988, the marginal tax rate declined from 70% to 28%.  Since then the highest marginal tax rate that wealthy Americans have paid has been 40%.[ii]  This has been part of a major income redistribution.  That redistribution has favored the wealthiest members of our society.  In fact for many of these wealthy Americans they earn their fortunes through capital gains and they pay a mere 15% on much of their wealth.   Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men in the world, once commented that “his tax rate was lower than his secretary’s”. 
                Republicans would like us to believe that business will be decimated by high taxes.  This is completely false.  In fact American business reigned supreme during the post-war years.  During the 1950s and 1960s General Motors was the largest company in the world.  GM’s President, Alfred Sloan, was so wealthy he was able to start a huge foundation bearing his name, and generously donate much of his fortune to causes such as treating cancer and education (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center bears the name of him and his head of research at GM, Charles Kettering).  Today, GM is mostly known for its 2009 bankruptcy.  There are many reasons for this of course, such as increased competition, and bad business practices by GM, however, it cannot be argued that GM performed better under lower government taxes. 
                So, wealthy Americans need not worry about high taxes.  Perhaps it is time that the wealthy only have two homes instead of five.  One boat instead of three.  A Mercedes instead of a Ferrari.  The tax policies which have been instituted since 1980, have only helped the wealthiest Americans, while everyone else has been struggling to stay afloat.  High taxes allowed governments to build tremendous infrastructure.  It allowed Americans to go to public colleges for free.  It even allowed people to buy a tremendous amount of consumer goods, without having to use credit cards.  It is time for the wealthy to pay their fair share. 






[i] Piketty, Thomas.  Capital in the 21st Century.  Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.  2014.  Graph on page 499.  
[ii] Ibid, pg 499-500

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