The standard of living for the average American today -- even after adjusting for inflation -- is nearly seven times higher than it was a century ago. (Per capita Gross National Product in 1900 was $246.) Today's minimum-wage worker earns more in a single day, in real terms, than a low-skilled worker could earn in a 70-hour, six-day workweek during the presidency of William McKinley.
Yet it remains a persistent shibboleth among those who favor government redistribution of Americans' wealth that the progress wrought by America's "dog-eat-dog, Social Darwinist" economy has benefited only those who were at the top of the economic pyramid to start with.
Now, even if it were true that the gains experienced by the rich continually outpace those of the poor, those who champion "economic justice" through government seizure decline to acknowledge that in many cases, disparities in wealth may be fully justified. Some folks make great sacrifices to go to college and otherwise train for a profession, and then work long hours and save their pennies. Others laze about, frittering away their part-time earnings on revels and drink. Who in his right mind would propose that both "workers" deservethe same level of comfort and security after 50 years?
Furthermore, statistics which compare the wealth of the top fifth of Americans to the "perpetual poverty" of the lowest fifth tend to imply that individuals reside in their respective "quintile" all their lives, while in fact it often turns out that a college student in the "bottom quintile" in 1969 has indeed become the "top quintile" doctor or airline pilot of 1999.
But now it turns out that the famous finding of the Census Bureau, that the "top quintile of society in 1997 had $13.86 of income for every dollar received by the bottom quintile," is hogwash, anyway.
In a new report from the Washington-based Heritage Center for Data Analysis, titled "Income Inequality: How Census Data Misrepresent Income Distribution," analysts Robert Rector and Rea Hederman discover there are a lot more people in the Census Bureau's top "quintile" than in its lowest, even though "this is not revealed in Census reports."
("Comparing the total incomes of groups that are themselves substantially unequal in size is, at best, perplexing," write the researchers, in a classic example of academic understatement.)
But the figures turn out to be skewed by a lot more than that. As the Heritage researchers note in the conclusion to their report:
"If incomes and taxes are counted more completely, and if the quintiles are adjusted to contain equal numbers of persons, then the ratio of the incomes of the top to the bottom quintile drops to $4.23 to $1.00. Moreover, the remaining difference is due in a large part to the fact that working age adults in the top quintile work almost twice as many hours, on average, as those in the bottom quintile. If such adults worked the same number of hours, the ratio of incomes would fall to around $3.18 to $1.00.
"Differences in income in the United States are the natural result of vast differences in ability and behavior between individuals. In general, those persons at high income levels tend to be married, to work large numbers of hours per year, to have high levels of skill and productivity, and to provide higher levels of savings and investment necessary to sustain the overall prosperity of the economy," the researchers conclude.
Nonetheless, although those in the "lowest quintile" tend to be non-married, to work little, and to have low levels of skill and productivity, the researchers found such persons by 1997 still enjoyed an average income of $8,000 -- "slightly higher, in inflation-adjusted terms, than the average per capita icome of the whole society at the beginning of World War II."
The American economy: It floats even the leaky boats.
Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $21.95 plus $3 shipping ($6 UPS; $2 shipping each additional copy) through Mountain Media, P.O. Box 271122, Las Vegas, Nev. 89127. The 500-page trade paperback may also be ordered via web site http://ww.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html, or at 1-800-244-2224. Credit cards accepted; volume discounts available.
***
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
* * *
To subscribe, send a message to vinsends-request@ezlink.com, from your NEW address, including the word "subscribe" (with no quotation marks) in the "Subject" line.
All I ask of electronic subscribers is that they not RE-forward my columns until on or after the embargo date which appears at the top of each, and that (should they then choose to do so) they copy the columns in their entirety, preserving the original attribution.
The Vinsends list is maintained by Alan Wendt in Colorado, who may be reached directly at alan@ezlink.com. The web sites for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm, and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex. The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth in Flagstaff, who may be reached directly at mvoth@infomagic.com.