# How do we actually address rampant income inequality? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303 "2016-02-17T00:00:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Doubticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@Doubticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doubticus)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/21 "2016-02-17T15:50:56Z")
Make the total earnings of the top paid people at a company a multiple of the lowest paid person at a company. That way if the CEOs want more money, they can work to raise their employees standard of living. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/22 "2016-02-17T15:59:29Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > implement a nation wide basic income for citizens You’re going to get kicked out of the GOP. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/23 "2016-02-17T16:13:23Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > He gave the answer, only if it’s done by a state (a distinction without much difference in my mind in terms of policy) and even then he’d prefer to move to a state that was closer to Galts Gulch/Rapture from Andrew Ryan. > > It’s interesting, the circle of concern really only extends to oneself and perhaps a family in this sort of view. > > Too callous for my tastes. My personal belief is that I have a moral obligation to help the poor and needy. I take that duty seriously and try to help out to the extent that I can. My objections to using the government to accomplish that goal fall into three categories: 1. I have strong beliefs about the proper role of government, particularly the federal government. I don’t think the feds should have a general police power, general warrants, run means-tested benefit programs, or a good bit of what the federal government currently does (which is one reason a state-run program is less-objectionable to me). 2. I loathe the coercive nature of government. I’m generally a “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” kind of guy, and the more property the government takes from its citizens through taxes, the less free they are to pursue happiness according to their own convictions. Like was said earlier (a floor, I believe it was called), there’s some minimal level of taxation I could find acceptable, or at least not as detestable as our current level, and could be mollified and live with only minor grumbling. We’re well beyond that level today. 3. I also think the government is a terribly inefficient way to get almost anything done. Government programs designed to help the poor are like giant money-shredding machines that occasionally malfunction and let a whole dollar or two slip through to the poor on the receiving end. Most of the time though, most of the money is just stripped away by layers of bureaucracy. When examining charities, it’s worth looking at what % of donations actually go to help the people in need, as opposed to paying for administrative fees. In good charities, that % is quite high. In wasteful / inefficient ones, it’s quite low. In the case of many government programs, it’s extremely low. And then of course there is fraud and abuse of federal-government-run programs, I believe to a greater extent than privately-run charities. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/24 "2016-02-17T16:14:56Z")
It’s receding to almost Victorian era capitalism - how far is the US away from poor houses when tented camps spring up every summer, and as per then the root cause can only be a lack of democratic representation within the population. Then it was a narrow-based, property owning electorate, now it’s paid-for politicians representing the owner class. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/25 "2016-02-17T16:24:54Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Where is your line of re-distributive tolerance? How about start with the status quo and make an argument for why it should change. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/26 "2016-02-17T16:27:47Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It’s instructive that this nit was the only thing of interest to you in my post. > > And yet you still managed to misunderstand even that nit. The point is that many poor families in the U.S. can afford neither healthy food nor minimal healthcare. The prices of electronic toys have plummeted, but not that of life’s necessities. Some do not begrudge the poor if they spend modestly to bring a little joy into their lives. > > Most interesting of all is that, when pressed on the point, you effectively admit that your original point was wrong – many Americans are poor – you just wanted to find a way to the blame the victims who “REALLY suck at prioritizing their spending.” It was of interest to me because it was an insult targeted at me. And where did I “admit that my original point was wrong”? My original point was that the federal government’s “poverty line” isn’t a good measure of people who are truly living in poverty. There are, undoubtedly, some people in this country that are truly destitute and impoverished. If I had to guess, I’d say that it might be 10 million people. Many of them are deserving of our help and assistance, and they’re either receiving it already (or they’ve chosen to reject it). In a country of ~320 million, I don’t consider 3% to be a major of a crisis. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/27 "2016-02-17T16:28:39Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > 1. implement a nation wide basic income for citizens > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You’re going to get kicked out of the GOP. Surprising, but I have seen other conservatives agreeing with that, I do think that there should be some means testing applied to that and a priority should be given to people whose jobs are being sent away or to workers that were working diligently for years but that thanks to regulations, automation and computers they had jobs that are not ever coming back. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/28 "2016-02-17T16:51:15Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > 1. Increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations. > 2. Tax or otherwise discourage hiding money offshore. > 3. Corporations will invest in new equipment, expansion of operations, development of new products, etc., which are tax deductible, so that they will not be just ‘giving money away’ to the government. Wealthy people will invest for the same reason. > 4. People will need to be hired to develop the new products, manufacture the new products, build the new facilities, and so forth. More people will be employed, and wages will be higher. > 5. Thus, the income gap decreases. Numbers 1 and 2 are contradictory. The higher taxes are the more incentives there are to avoid them. You can’t prevent rich people from moving to another country or a corporation from acquiring a foreign company and then moving its headquarters there. Rich people are almost by definition people who are both resourceful and care alot about money. They are not going to sit still and let the government take most of their money. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/29 "2016-02-17T16:54:05Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, Clinton, by turning in a balanced budget (a surplus!) isn’t in the same category as Reagan and Bush, who simultaneously cut taxes (drastically) and oversaw huge military budget increases. Cutting taxes and increasing spending is how they exploded the debt. Bush the elder, Clinton, and Obama didn’t engage in that practice (although Obama hasn’t done enough to raise taxes, either.) > > Cutting taxes and then running a trillion dollar war is just about the worst conceivable possible combinations of public policy decisions. On the topic of inequality, Clinton gets a pass on welfare reform? ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/30 "2016-02-17T16:54:39Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > Near as I can tell the plan is to keep going until collapse. Send the trouble makers to the ever expanding prison industry. It’s a good plan. The number of prisoners in America is not expanding. It is at a [10 year low](http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/analysis/2015/09/17/state-federal-prison-populations-decline-simultaneously-for-first-time-in-36-years). ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/31 "2016-02-17T16:57:37Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > A very low standard. I should hope poor Americans in 2016 are better off than poor Americans in 1940 or the 1800s, let alone the standards of Some impoverished African country. Being better off than 99% of everyone who has every lived, and 90% of the people now living is a very low standard? That is just making those words meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/32 "2016-02-17T17:00:45Z")
Eliminate right to work laws. Republicans have been quite successful in diminishing the power of organized labor, meaning that most people work for whatever the company happens to feel like giving you. Increase the estate tax, lower the threshold at which estates are taxed, and close loopholes used to avoid them. Government-run health care for all, paid for with taxes. Once corporations don’t have to pay for health care benefits, they can either lower their prices, pay their employees more, or hire more of them. Undo all of the Bush tax cuts. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/33 "2016-02-17T17:02:24Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > My personal belief is that I have a moral obligation to help the poor and needy. I take that duty seriously and try to help out to the extent that I can. Many, or even most, people say that it is morally correct to help the poor and needy. And yet, most people don’t. Sure, they’d _like_ to donate, but they have to take care of their own families first. Sure, they’d _like_ to volunteer at a food bank or other project, but they just don’t have the time. After all, they work all week and need time to relax on the weekends. Given that most people like the idea of fulfilling moral obligations – _in theory_, but do little to nothing to do it, it falls upon _you_ who ‘take that duty seriously’ to put in the time and money. Are you OK with that, putting in more than your fair share? Or do you say to poor people, ‘Sorry. I did my part. If you’re starving it’s other people’s fault.’? Or should there be some sort of mechanism where people of good moral character (and others) contribute to the well-being of the country and its citizens? ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/34 "2016-02-17T17:03:42Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, Clinton, by turning in a balanced budget (a surplus!) isn’t in the same category as Reagan and Bush, who simultaneously cut taxes (drastically) and oversaw huge military budget increases. Cutting taxes and increasing spending is how they exploded the debt. Bush the elder, Clinton, and Obama didn’t engage in that practice (although Obama hasn’t done enough to raise taxes, either.) > > Cutting taxes and then running a trillion dollar war is just about the worst conceivable possible combinations of public policy decisions. It should be noted that when Clinton took office the sharp upswing in the economy was allready well underway, by the time he left office it was still fairly healthy but on a downward trend. I think any president would have done well durring that same period. He is getting too much credit for being in the right place at the right time. I still think he did a good job overall as president. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/35 "2016-02-17T17:05:59Z")
> [@Doubticus](#): > > Make the total earnings of the top paid people at a company a multiple of the lowest paid person at a company. That way if the CEOs want more money, they can work to raise their employees standard of living. [That has been tried](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB117607679932563601)and has failed so far. Whole Foods had a rule capping executive pay (not including stock options) at 8 times average pay. In order to retain key executives they had to raise it to 14 times and then 19 times average pay. Ben and Jerry’s ice cream had to get rid of the executive pay cap to find a new CEO, furniture maker Herman Miller had to get rid of theirs when they found it was costing them executives. The market decides what CEO pay is and what other employees are paid, there is no good way to circumvent this. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/36 "2016-02-17T17:09:47Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > There is no good mechanism by which to tax wealth. Surely this is a problem that can be solved through new laws or regulations, or by getting rid of old laws or regulations, by our wealthy politicians. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/37 "2016-02-17T17:14:47Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Eliminate right to work laws. Republicans have been quite successful in diminishing the power of organized labor, meaning that most people work for whatever the company happens to feel like giving you. Counter-productive. American workers have to compete on the global scale. A union with more power will prices its workers out of jobs that move to China or India. (Which I am just fine with–I believe that Chinese and Indians are just as worthy of a good job as an American.) ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/38 "2016-02-17T17:16:23Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Counter-productive. American workers have to compete on the global scale. A union with more power will prices its workers out of jobs that move to China or India. (Which I am just fine with–I believe that Chinese and Indians are just as worthy of a good job as an American.) Yeah right. Like at Starbucks down the street. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/39 "2016-02-17T17:19:29Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You’re going to get kicked out of the GOP. One of the first person to propose a basic income was Milton Friedman who has an important libertarian thinker. He first proposed a negative income tax in 1962. However, giving people a basic income will do nothing to stop income inequality since the problem is people at the top making more not people at the bottom not getting enough government money. Overall welfare spending per person living in or near poverty has [tripled](http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/02/heres-why-bernie-sanders-doesnt-say-much-about-welfare-reform)since 1980 and this is the time income inequality has become larger. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2016, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303/40 "2016-02-17T17:20:49Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > Surely this is a problem that can be solved through new laws or regulations, or by getting rid of old laws or regulations, by our wealthy politicians. I think the point was that ‘wealth’ is something that already exists, as opposed to ‘income’ which is something being received. If I have a million dollars in the bank, that is my ‘wealth’ and it isn’t taxed. The interest I make on my wealth is ‘income’, and that does get taxed. Talking about ‘taxing wealth’ is disingenuous, as being wealthy isn’t the problem. The problem is that incomes that are under-taxed create more wealth for the people who need it least, at the expense of the people who need it most. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-actually-address-rampant-income-inequality/746303.md?page=3)