Am I misreading something? It seems like they’re saying including proprietors matters, but none of their arguments are supported at all by including proprietors. Round trip as well as the late 1940’s being all time lows both seem to require 0% prop to me.
Yes, I reread their piece several times to make sure I wasn't missing something, and maybe I am, but it does seem like they want to play up high labor income in current day prop income while also excluding prop income in the 1940s. Maybe they'll see this and respond!
It looks to me like labor force participation is falling as boomers retire, recently exacerbated by immigrants exiting. We can measure this by count or income, but the answer looks similar-- definitional variations be damned. Choosing a five-year period from 80 years ago as the historical benchmark is risible. Is it this simple, or am I missing something?
Since the US population will continue to age, labor income as a proportion of the economy will continue to fall. Meanwhile, government outlays for retirement and healthcare of an aging society will continue to rise. The policy implication is that we can't continue to rely on taxing labor income to fund the government to the same extent without crushing the shrinking labor pool. So where do we find more tax money? Through process of elimination, I think we end up raising tax rates on capital, one way or another (dividend, capital gain, profit, estate, wealth tax), to levels seen in the middle to late 20th century. Also, import more labor.
Yes. A policy that might help is to require a higher FICA contribution by employers of immigrants. That both improves the solvency of SS and Medicare, and if there's a tie between the decision of who to hire, an immigrant or a native, then the employer has an incentive to choose the native. The immigrant employee might contribute more to FICA as well. A lot of this is about optics, but optics matter.
For any of that to matter, immigrants need to be here legally, be part of the financial system, and pay taxes. I suspect a lot of taxes are evaded in a cash economy.
I read recently about Houston's work force shrinking, probably due to immigrants leaving. I'm not sure people understand how destructive that can be because it starts a vicious cycle of a shrinking tax base, higher tax rates, falling property values, then more emigration because the city is now undesirable. See Rust Belt cities. You never want to start that feedback loop.
Am I misreading something? It seems like they’re saying including proprietors matters, but none of their arguments are supported at all by including proprietors. Round trip as well as the late 1940’s being all time lows both seem to require 0% prop to me.
Yes, I reread their piece several times to make sure I wasn't missing something, and maybe I am, but it does seem like they want to play up high labor income in current day prop income while also excluding prop income in the 1940s. Maybe they'll see this and respond!
Round trip back to the 1920s is not the flex they think it is. so on a long term trend we are on the way back to Feudalism. Is that ok?
It looks to me like labor force participation is falling as boomers retire, recently exacerbated by immigrants exiting. We can measure this by count or income, but the answer looks similar-- definitional variations be damned. Choosing a five-year period from 80 years ago as the historical benchmark is risible. Is it this simple, or am I missing something?
Since the US population will continue to age, labor income as a proportion of the economy will continue to fall. Meanwhile, government outlays for retirement and healthcare of an aging society will continue to rise. The policy implication is that we can't continue to rely on taxing labor income to fund the government to the same extent without crushing the shrinking labor pool. So where do we find more tax money? Through process of elimination, I think we end up raising tax rates on capital, one way or another (dividend, capital gain, profit, estate, wealth tax), to levels seen in the middle to late 20th century. Also, import more labor.
we'll have to convince the aging boomers that adding immigrant laborers is the answer to keeping their social security and medicare paid for.
Yes. A policy that might help is to require a higher FICA contribution by employers of immigrants. That both improves the solvency of SS and Medicare, and if there's a tie between the decision of who to hire, an immigrant or a native, then the employer has an incentive to choose the native. The immigrant employee might contribute more to FICA as well. A lot of this is about optics, but optics matter.
For any of that to matter, immigrants need to be here legally, be part of the financial system, and pay taxes. I suspect a lot of taxes are evaded in a cash economy.
I read recently about Houston's work force shrinking, probably due to immigrants leaving. I'm not sure people understand how destructive that can be because it starts a vicious cycle of a shrinking tax base, higher tax rates, falling property values, then more emigration because the city is now undesirable. See Rust Belt cities. You never want to start that feedback loop.