I never thought we could really use confidence intervals in this manner. I’ve seen it in other ways but can you apply it this way?
Jonathan:
Rather than Bernstein’s “statistically indistinguishable from no change at all,” I’d prefer a phrasing such as “consistent with a zero change in the population.”
Some of the commenters seem to have missed the humor in your headline “There is no increased inequality, unless you look at the top 1%”.
Give David Frum (or his editor) the credit for that headline. I sent it in with some really boring headline and then they came up with that one.
I think the facts Ms. Dalmia mentions about changing household demographics aren’t meant to discredit taxation as a solution to inequality, but rather to attack the assertion that (lack of) taxation causes inequality, i.e. the idea that the rich are richer because the poor are poorer (or more crudely, that the rich have “stolen” money from the poor).
I do agree with your main point, that even if low taxes didn’t cause inequality, it doesn’t logically follow that high taxes couldn’t ameliorate it via social spending. That is a more complicated question that involves not just social scientific inquiry, but takes on a broader “moral” debate regarding views of government’s role in private and public life (among other things). I understand that people are frustrated – I had to move back home and currently get by via temping and grading tests. But answering such questions requires a more nuanced view than just viewing wealth accumulation as theft – even if it is quite disproportionate.
I would have posted this on FrumForum, but it requires registration. And there’s already 40 comments there.
Hey Andrew,
I might be wrong but this analysis seems wrong to me:
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/jobs-report-chapter-1-appendix/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JaredBernstein+%28Jared+Bernstein%29
I never thought we could really use confidence intervals in this manner. I’ve seen it in other ways but can you apply it this way?
Jonathan:
Rather than Bernstein’s “statistically indistinguishable from no change at all,” I’d prefer a phrasing such as “consistent with a zero change in the population.”
Some of the commenters seem to have missed the humor in your headline “There is no increased inequality, unless you look at the top 1%”.
Give David Frum (or his editor) the credit for that headline. I sent it in with some really boring headline and then they came up with that one.
I think the facts Ms. Dalmia mentions about changing household demographics aren’t meant to discredit taxation as a solution to inequality, but rather to attack the assertion that (lack of) taxation causes inequality, i.e. the idea that the rich are richer because the poor are poorer (or more crudely, that the rich have “stolen” money from the poor).
I do agree with your main point, that even if low taxes didn’t cause inequality, it doesn’t logically follow that high taxes couldn’t ameliorate it via social spending. That is a more complicated question that involves not just social scientific inquiry, but takes on a broader “moral” debate regarding views of government’s role in private and public life (among other things). I understand that people are frustrated – I had to move back home and currently get by via temping and grading tests. But answering such questions requires a more nuanced view than just viewing wealth accumulation as theft – even if it is quite disproportionate.
I would have posted this on FrumForum, but it requires registration. And there’s already 40 comments there.