Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
A recent brief from the N.C. Budget and Tax Center breaks down the latest poverty data for North Carolina. The analysis is based on 2010 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
The Census’ American Community Survey recorded a large jump in poverty in North Carolina, from 14.3 percent in 2007 to 17.5 percent in 2010. That puts nearly 1.6 million North Carolinians living in poverty, or making at or below $22,314 annually for a family of four. More than 728,000 million North Carolinians were living in deep poverty, meaning they earn just half of the annual income threshold identified above as the federal poverty line.
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Overall, the poverty rate in urban counties in the state was 19.1 percent, 3.7 percentage points higher than rural poverty. A more detailed look shows that many counties in more rural parts of the state had some of the highest poverty rates. Robeson County had nearly 1 in 3 residents living in poverty while Rutherford and Wilson Counties had more than 1 in 5 residents living in poverty — these statistics represent the highest county‐level poverty rates for which data is available. Urban counties, like Wake and Mecklenburg, had some of the largest increases in poverty rates over the Great Recession with 44.6 and 43 percent increases respectively.
Jared Bernstein points out that the rise in inequality has to do with more than just taxes and results in part from other policy choices that shape how the benefits of economic growth are distributed.
One more biggie: full employment. It’s very much a policy variable and one, in fact, that used to be the law for the Federal Reserve—so-called Humphrey Hawkins Act mandated full employment as a policy goal of the Fed. As I stress here, the fact that our job market has run with so much slack over the very period when inequality grew so quickly is no coincidence (and visa-versa: when inequality was flat or falling, we were more likely to be at full employment).
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And of course, in recession, like now, by dithering on stimulus, we’re disproportionately hurting the wage, incomes, and living standards of the folks who’ve been losing income share over the years shown in the figure above.
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In other words, there are a lot of policy measures that have considerable impact on how the benefits of growth are distributed—before taxes even show up on the scene. When representatives of the wealthy squeal about “class warfare,” they’re not just talking about shielding their treasure from the tax system. They’re also protecting and endorsing a policy agenda that’s helped tilt growth their way for a long time.
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
Research prepared by South by North Strategies was featured in several media stories during the month of September:
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