Tag: Income inequality

Undocumented Immigrants Paid Nearly $100 Billion in Taxes

Buck Banks

$100 billion

A new study shows that undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local tax revenue in 2022 while many are shut out of the programs their taxes fund. The findings run counter to anti-immigrant rhetoric that undocumented immigrants are “destroying” social programs, reported the Florida Phoenix. In 40 states, undocumented immigrants paid higher tax rates than the top 1% of the income scale in those states, according to a study released Tuesday from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning, nonprofit think tank.

World’s Wealthiest Got $1 Trillion Richer in 2017

Buck Banks

$1 trillion

Bloomberg: “The richest people on earth became $1 trillion richer in 2017, more than four times last year’s gain, as stock markets shrugged off economic, social and political divisions to reach record highs. … The 23 percent increase on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people, compares with an almost 20 percent increase for both the MSCI World Index and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.”

Eight White Guys Own as Much Wealth as the Bottom Half of the World’s Population

Buck Banks

8

Number of white men who own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population,“Inequality is so stark that a small group of men own the same wealth as half the world, say campaigners ahead of the high-profile World Economic Forum in Davos,” Sky News reports. “According to research by Oxfam, the eight billionaires, including Bill Gates who tops the list, have riches equivalent to the wealth of the world’s 3.6 billion poorest people.”

¡Yay, Miami es Numero-Uno!

Buck Banks

Copyright: Image by StockUnlimited
Copyright: Image by StockUnlimited
Having just dodged the first major hurricane to hit Florida in more than a decade, Miami, it would appear, has something else to celebrate. Or not.

According to Bloomberg, Miami is now the most unequal city in the United States, having leapfrogged five ranks in just a year to reach the top. Yay! We have greater income disparity than anybody!

Bloomberg ordered large cities – those with populations of at least 250,000 – based on the Gini coefficient. The index measures the distribution of household income using 2015 data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The ratio ranges from zero, which reflects absolute equality, to one, complete inequality. Miami took the top spot in 2016 with a coefficient of .58, followed by Atlanta and New Orleans.

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Sanders Says He’s Behind Because ‘Poor People Don’t Vote’

Buck Banks

25

Number of states with the highest levels of income inequality. Of those, 17 have held primaries so far, and Hillary Clinton has won 16 of them, NBC News reports. When asked why he thinks he’s losing in those states, Sen. Bernie Sanders responded: “Well, because poor people don’t vote. I mean, that’s just a fact.”

Income Inequality Shaping Up to Be a Real Issue in 2016

Buck Banks

6 in 10

Americans said government should do more to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, but they split sharply along partisan lines, a new New York Times/CBS News poll finds. “Only one-third of Republicans supported a more active government role, versus eight in 10 of Democrats.”A Americans “are broadly concerned about inequality of wealth and income despite an economy that has improved by most measures, a sentiment that is already driving the 2016 presidential contest.”

Swiss CEOs Improved Their Golf Handicap During Global Financial Crisis

Buck Banks

0.28

Average improvement in their golf handicaps achieved by Swiss CEOs who were golfers during the worldwide financial crisis, according to an analysis by a team at the University of Zurich of the golf handicaps of 440 top managers in Switzerland. Improving a handicap, a golfing-skill measure that ranges from 0–36, is difficult and time consuming and thus represents time away from the office. By contrast, executives who owned their businesses suffered an average annual handicap deterioration of 0.41 during the downturn, suggesting that owners were putting in more effort to deal with the crisis than CEOs were, the researchers say.

Issa: Our Poor Are Richer Than Their Poor

Buck Banks

If you go to India or you go to any number of other Third World countries, you have two problems: You have greater inequality of income and wealth. You also have less opportunity for people to rise from the have not to the have.

— Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the richest man in Congress, telling CNN that America has made “our poor somewhat the envy of the world.”