Talk:Income inequality in the United States/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Income inequality in the United States. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Added section on debate over multi-year data.

Over Lifetimes

I proposed to add the following in response to the Krugman editorial references on lifetime (i.e. multi-year, not annual) income inequality:

"Economist David Splinter of the United States Congress Joint Committee on Taxation claims that using panel data (i.e. following the same people over that time period) is more accurate for estimating distribution of economic growth, as "mobility reshuffles adults across income groups, meaning cross-sectional comparisons provide inaccurate measures of the incidence of growth." Up to three-quarters of the increase in annual income inequality is explained by the widening gap between annual and multi-year income inequality.^[1] Economist Russ Roberts claims that further adjustments on Splinter's numbers for age shows the largest percentage gains from the past few decades go to the poorest workers ^[2] "

These sources are at least at the level of the Krugman editorial (one is a working paper from an economist who has been on the United States Congress Joint Committee on Taxation since 2012, and the other is a similar style editorial to Krugman's that references many different studies). Given that these are all reputable professionals (none are "fringe") with different takes on the data, I believe all should be included or, failing that, the Krugman editorial should also be excluded.

Barnhorst (talk) 14:33, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

References

^ "Income Mobility and Inequality in the United States: Evidence from Tax Data since 1979" (PDF). 2018-10-24.
^ "Do the Rich Get All the Gains from Economic Growth?". 2018-10-23.

I think the above plot of "Change in median income of each quintile of income from 1980-2014, using panel data" is misleading by itself. We need an international comparison, e.g. "the Great Gatsby Curve" in the Wikipedia article on "Socioeconomic mobility in the United States". More research on that is available, presented in a more easily understandable form, but I don't have time to research it right now. DavidMCEddy (talk) 15:00, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

The "Great Gatsby Curve" is intergenerational. I don't know of one that exists intragenerational. Barnhorst (talk) 16:30, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

I believe what you say, but I don't know how that relates to the issues involved here and how they might most effectively be communicated to a lay audience. It's known that people with more experience tend to have higher income. Therefore, this plot of "Change in median income of each quintile of income" should not be surprising. I would expect that the first job of a teenager could be sub-minimum wage, with wages rising on average more rapidly for young adults than people older, and the incomes of very successful professionals could be expected to fall a decade later as many retire.

However, these effects are subtle and therefore take time to process -- and could easily be misinterpreted.

Consequently, without an international comparison, an analysis of this nature could easily add more heat than light to the discussion and to popular understanding of the issues involved.

I think an international comparison of intergenerational effects might most effectively help people understand the issues involved here. I've seen analyses of that nature but cannot find such now. DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:02, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

There is an intergenerational section labeled "between generations", and it does have the Great Gatsby Curve. I am proposing additions to the "Over Liftetimes" section, which would be intragenerational. The very idea that you say "should not be surprising" is exactly what many people are missing! I'm not against having an international comparison if you can find the data.Barnhorst (talk) 17:41, 25 May 2019 (UTC)

Citation cleanup: SLOW DOWN and preview

Lfstevens, please slow down and use the Preview feature of the editor to look for red error messages in the citations that you are converting to templates. As of this writing, I see fourteen red error messages that were introduced in these edits. Please do not Publish citations with error messages in them. This is a live Wikipedia article, available for the whole world to read. Please fix the red error messages in the article before converting more citations to templates.

Punditry/Opinions of notable individuals

2) I believe that some non-otherwise relevant opinions by pundits should be either agglomerated into one section "Opinions of notable individuals" or removed, and I'd prefer removed. Below is some of what I'm referring to:

Investor Warren Buffett said in 2006, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." He advocated much higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans.[156] at least removing what he advocates.
United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston, following a fact finding mission to the United States in December 2017, said in his report that "the United States already leads the developed world in income and wealth inequality, and it is now moving full steam ahead to make itself even more unequal." I don't see that this adds any relevant information; to me it reads as "America is bad, and going full steam to being worse" - how does this improve the reader's understanding of income inequality? ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 00:24, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

OHCHR reports on societal conditions are cited in other Wiki articles such as Crisis in Venezuela, Poverty in the United Kingdom and many others. And it seems as notable as the statements by Shiller, Greenspan, Obama and others in the same section of this article, perhaps even more so given the fact finding mission was widely reported throughout mainstream media, including The Washington Post, CNN, The Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, UPI, and The Guardian. Interestingly enough, the Associated Press article in particular mentions that very quote I used in this article twice. I fail to see why something this notable should not be included. I wouldn't mind an "opinion of notable individuals" section (or something similar) as that would be preferable to purging, although such reports are not relegated to such sections in other articles.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 01:34, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Notable viewpoints are best left in a historical context. --Ronz (talk) 03:29, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "in a historical context", please elaborate. Thanks. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 04:19, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Context that is clearly encyclopedic, that places the viewpoints in a context of the time period. This is to avoid NOT and POV problems.--Ronz (talk) 14:51, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

This article has a lot of excerpts from pundits. Unless their statements add information we don't otherwise have and have trouble sourcing elsewhere, rather than merely noting their views, I think they should mostly go. And when we can replace punditry with a real secondary source, that should happen. Lfstevens (talk) 06:20, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@C.J. Griffin: 1) Just because some content is in other articles doesn't mean that it SHOULD be in those articles.

2) From: WP:N "notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article." See the section: Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article: "The notability guidelines do not apply to contents of articles or lists (with the exception of lists which restrict inclusion to notable items or people). Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies."

As a slightly relevant comment, I recently heard an interview with Soledad O'Brien (sorry I couldn't find a link) where she lamented that the US press has a standard accepted policy that ANYTHING that a president says is notable enough to be published; if the president were to say that the moon is made of cheese, that would be worthy of publication:"Trump says the moon is made of cheese."

That said, I hope we can come up with some way to balance and limit left/right pundits/president's opinions about income inequality (otherwise we'll have an ENORMOUS article).

I would be much more inclined to want to include Alston's statement if it were to state something like: "I dislike IE because it I believe that it will result in more human suffering and poverty" than just "I dislike IE". I haven't read the five references you provided to see whether we can get that type of a statement from those sources. Essentially some notable individual saying that they dislike X doesn't really add anything other than an argument from authority...instead saying they dislike X because they think it leads to Y and Z could be opinions worth including.---Avatar317 ^(talk) 00:44, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

The AP report which highlights the quote used in this article also quotes Alston as saying that, in a wealthy country like the US, the persistence of extreme inequality and poverty is in effect "a political choice" by those in powered that, "with political will, it could readily be eliminated." I think some variation of that could be included as it is a significant point from Alston on this issue. He also said to AP "the way in which people living in poverty are treated across the U.S. system amounts to a violation, in effect, of their civil and political rights." The latter has more to do with poverty but is still relevant.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 05:19, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Cleanup

I finished a first pass through this. Argghhh. First, I appreciate everyone's patience as I ground through the hundreds of references. Thanks for hanging in there. As always, please flag any screw ups and I will fix. After the refs, I went through the text. Somebody got very energetic in 2014 or so and left a major impact on the piece. Unfortunately, a lot of that material has not passed the test of time. I deleted some but a lot more needs to go. The reliance on journalists and other pundits throughout is remarkable and not good. I'm looking for secondary sources now. This may be something. Suggestions appreciated. Cheers! Lfstevens (talk) 06:44, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Your cleanup is wiping out reliably sourced materials, some very recent. I've restored some of these materials as their deletions do not seem justified, including very recent articles from The Washington Post and the United Nations HRC.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 19:26, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing the changes. A discussion here might prove more productive than undoing each others' changes. The article is indeed bloated, not just the lede. The Overview repeats lots that's in the lede. That should go and the other material should either move into the lede or into the detail sections. The lede is supposed to serve as the overview. Just because articles are recent doesn't mean they belong here. The articles is plagued with WP:Recentism, not to mention bloggery and punditry, all of which should be replaced with material/references to secondary sources. As I've stated throughout this exercise, I'm happy to correct any errors that I introduce and welcome feedback and other contributions. But this article has a long way to go and reverts are no way to move forward. I hope it goes without saying that I"m not removing material just because it is poorly sourced. I'm looking for stuff that strays off topic, etc., of which there is much.

Here is a list of changes to the beginning that I propose:

Make all graphics 238 wide, so they are uniform.
Merge Overview and lede, promoting, eliminating and/or demoting various bits. Based on the above feedback, I will demote more and merge less.
Points with 4+ cites for a single point is generally overkill. I propose to keep only the best one(s) as long as the point remains supported.
The Saez/Zucman study is highly controversial and in no way represents consensus. It is not right for WP.

Again feedback encouraged! Lfstevens (talk) 10:17, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

It's hard not to notice them given it started with myriad broken citations and huge sections disappearing often without any explanation whatsoever (such as the sub-section on political polarization which I subsequently restored). I have nothing against cleaning up and updating this article. It needs it. My issue is, as someone who has been involved in editing this article from time to time over the last several years, I take issue with an editor who has not been involved in its construction just obliterating huge sections of reliably sourced materials, including entire sections, with either little explanation or none at all. I have been observing some of your updates, and many make sense and I agree with, but became concerned with the mass deletions happening in single edits with no reason given for the removal of said material.

And some of the arguments you give above seem contradictory. For example, you cite RECENTISM in your post above to justify some deletions, yet I believe you are the editor who added a template that the article needs updated. The material you removed which prompted my recent and relatively minor restorations, in particular the WaPo article on the Census Bureau recording the highest level of inequality since it started keeping records, were legitimate updates to the article. Yet this well sourced and certainly notable material disappeared along with a plethora of other reliably sourced and notable material (including an OHCHR report which I recently added) in one mass deletion with the reason given in your edit summary being "ce, ref cleanup (VE deletes references during some cut/paste scenarios". Yeah, bullshit!

It's not like my restoration of this material rolled back the article to a previous version, so it was hardly a major revert, and I modified such material and placed it in appropriate sections and noted it on the talk page above. It seems to me that, if an editor is going to engage in a massive purge of reliably sourced material, some of it long standing and some of it more recent, the onus should be on that editor to justify such removals on the talk page or in single edits with summaries that explain why such material should be removed, not in ambiguous edit summaries such as "cleanup" or "update" which obscure massive changes to the article, some which might be hotly disputed (and indeed are).

The three points above I take no issue with, so long as it doesn't involve the issues of mass purging/changes I brought up in this post, but point number four I completely disagree with. First of all, Saez and Zucman are notable economists who specialize in the study of inequality; secondly, their findings were reported in a reliable source (WaPo); thirdly, their works are already cited in this article, and rightly so; fourthly, the material as re-added to Wikipedia by myself included proper attribution, so as not to use Wikipedia's voice (and there was no claim that it represents a consensus view). I see absolutely no reason for this material to be excluded.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Two comments:

1) to Lfstevens: Thank you for cleaning up/concising the article; it is definitely VERY long!!

I do agree with C.J. Griffin's comment It seems to me that, if an editor is going to engage in a massive purge of reliably sourced material, some of it long standing and some of it more recent, the onus should be on that editor to justify such removals on the talk page or in single edits with summaries that explain why such material should be removed, not in ambiguous edit summaries such as "cleanup" or "update" which obscure massive changes to the article, some which might be hotly disputed (and indeed are). - I try (you probably saw some of my recent edits to this article) to justify each removal, to allow others to revert (and discuss) each one separately. I also like that method because it gives me an opportunity to present my explanation for why I believe something should be removed; I feel that doing it this way overall leads to less edit-warring and quicker/more productive content-dispute resolution.

2) I believe that some non-otherwise relevant opinions by pundits should be either agglomerated into one section "Opinions of notable individuals" or removed, and I'd prefer removed. Below is some of what I'm referring to:

Investor Warren Buffett said in 2006, "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." He advocated much higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans.[156] at least removing what he advocates.
United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston, following a fact finding mission to the United States in December 2017, said in his report that "the United States already leads the developed world in income and wealth inequality, and it is now moving full steam ahead to make itself even more unequal." I don't see that this adds any relevant information; to me it reads as "America is bad, and going full steam to being worse" - how does this improve the reader's understanding of income inequality? ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 00:24, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

OHCHR reports on societal conditions are cited in other Wiki articles such as Crisis in Venezuela, Poverty in the United Kingdom and many others. And it seems as notable as the statements by Shiller, Greenspan, Obama and others in the same section of this article, perhaps even more so given the fact finding mission was widely reported throughout mainstream media, including The Washington Post, CNN, The Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, UPI, and The Guardian. Interestingly enough, the Associated Press article in particular mentions that very quote I used in this article twice. I fail to see why something this notable should not be included. I wouldn't mind an "opinion of notable individuals" section (or something similar) as that would be preferable to purging, although such reports are not relegated to such sections in other articles.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 01:34, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Notable viewpoints are best left in a historical context. --Ronz (talk) 03:29, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by "in a historical context", please elaborate. Thanks. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 04:19, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Context that is clearly encyclopedic, that places the viewpoints in a context of the time period. This is to avoid NOT and POV problems.--Ronz (talk) 14:51, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

"Cleanup" should be done with clear, descriptive edit summaries. --Ronz (talk) 03:29, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Major changes to the lede are not cleanup if they change the POV. That second sentence, "Income inequality has fluctuated since measurements began around 1915, declining until the 1950s, followed by a 30-year period of relative stability, then increasing until 2014 before declining.[2][3]" was almost meaningless, while misleading. I've reverted the change. --Ronz (talk) 03:43, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Great discussion, all. I take the criticisms to heart and will make smaller edits, with better explanations, hence. I note that I have not here and generally do not, revert others' edits. Instead, I bring things to Talk, as I have done here. I may sometimes make an edit that removes a recent addition. In an epic piece such as this, I may not even have noticed the addition.

Obviously, S/Z are credible and notable sources. However, this study quickly produced a storm of criticism. WP is not about the headlines. It is about reporting well-sourced consensus. If a controversial point is so important that it needs inclusion, then the critiques of it must also be noted.
Avoiding recentism is not the same thing as leaving outdated material in a piece. The consensus evolves; new data arrive.
This article has a lot of excerpts from pundits. Unless their statements add information we don't otherwise have and have trouble sourcing elsewhere, rather than merely noting their views, I think they should mostly go. And when we can replace punditry with a real secondary source, that sho:::uld happen.

OK, baby steps, now! Lfstevens (talk) 06:20, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@Lfstevens:, please revert your changes to the lede. That's not cleanup, and again changes the POV dramatically. --Ronz (talk) 14:54, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. I attempted to fix some of this by restoring context provided by the WaPo article on the recent Census bureau data.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:57, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm. Thanks for your work on the lede, but it isn't supposed to be exhaustive. That's why I didn't mention every source. Let's pick a couple, which is what you do in a "for example". We are not trying to reify individual economists. We don't need to define GINI in the lede. It's a detail.

I was offering a term 'adjusted compensation". Changing it to "Adjusted compensation or income after taxes and transfers" kind of defeats the purpose.

How can we work more effectively on this? Seems like too much cross-talk. Do I have to put everything on the talk page first? Yuk. Lfstevens (talk) 08:08, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I removed the P/S/Z mention in the lede. I left the Gini definition as we mention the measure a few times there. If we take out the definition, we should probably take out those stats and just leave the conclusion they imply (e.g., record inequality). Regarding the adjusted compensation term, I've added after taxes and transfers as that is used by CBO.Farcaster (talk) 15:37, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@RonZ: Sorry for the delayed response, I've been in the air and offline. Please explain what you mean by changes to POV. I attempted to explain my changes in the edit summary. They did go beyond cleanup, but I think it's an improvement, natch. Lfstevens (talk) 00:54, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Please revert it. If you don't understand what a change in POV is, you should not be making such edits at all, let alone putting yourself at risk for ArbEnf. --Ronz (talk) 01:01, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

That's not what I said. I understand what POV is. I don't understand the specific allegation you are making. What is the POV change? I am attempting to respectfully respond to your comments, and will happily make appropriate corrections. But threatening ArbEnf? On what basis? Other editors have now edited my contributions. Is reverting the right move? Lfstevens (talk) 05:15, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

If you understand POV, justify the change. The edit appeared to do exactly the opposite of what your edit summary claimed, "rewrote lede so that it mostly won't have to change as time passes." You introduce political aspects front and center to the topic, dramatically changing the focus and emphasis. In context of the previous attempt to change the lede with an outright misleading sentence, this looks very bad. [1] --Ronz (talk) 17:34, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the specifics. The lede already had political comments about Dems and Reps. Do you claim that the current wording is inaccurate and/or more biased than the original? Also, I'm not seeing how the version you changed was misleading. It was certainly shorter, but summarized the inequality changes correctly. The lede was already too long. I don't see why it was necessary to provide the details at that point, although I'm by no means insistent on this, or any other specific change that I make. Lfstevens (talk) 23:31, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

You introduce political aspects front and center to the topic, dramatically changing the focus and emphasis. Please address my concerns. --Ronz (talk) 15:33, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Here is the language before I started on the piece:

"The two major political parties have different approaches to the issue, with Democrats historically emphasizing that economic growth should result in shared prosperity (i.e., a pro-labor argument advocating income redistribution), while Republicans tend to avoid government intervention in income and wealth generation (i.e., a pro-capital argument against redistribution)."

Here is the language I used:

"It has become a significant issue in political campaigns, highlighted by the Democratic Party as a sign of unfairness and discounted by the Republican Party which concentrates on overall living standards."

I don't see any disqualifying difference. What do you see? Lfstevens (talk) 00:48, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't see... I agree. And you're unable to justify what you did, or address my concerns.

As before, you removed essential context.

You gave it emphasis that you're not even trying to justify.

Your edit summary said it mostly won't have to change as time passes, but seems more like the opposite of what you actually did.

I'm still unclear that you understand or know how to apply the basics of POV and LEDE. --Ronz (talk) 16:39, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

What essential context? What emphasis? What will have to change? And more attacks by you. Huh? Lfstevens (talk) 07:49, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

[2] --Ronz (talk) 18:25, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

@Ronz: Your comments lack SPECIFICITY in what you are complaining/objecting to. Others may not share your INTERPRETATION of POV and LEDE as they pertain to this article. At first I thought that you were complaining that Lfstevens's edits were CHANGING the POV toward one side rather than remaining neutral, which is why I changed it the way I did. Now you say it doesn't belong in the lead at all. I guess that's something we can discuss. (FYI, it has been in the lead since 2015-01-18, though at the bottom.)

Per MOS:LEAD "... and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." I feel that the political parties' positions on IE is something the average reader would want to know, and therefore I see it as an "important point". I feel that my wording of it was neutral. What do others think? Pinging Farcaster (who rewrote the lead to put it in) & C.J. Griffin

I'm objecting to Lfstevens' editing in general, and some of the changes made to the lede specifically. One change was undone. After getting no where with this discussion, I looked closer at another such change and decided the content would be best removed.

though at the bottom Exactly. With no justification for moving it to the top, I looked for relevant content in the article that it summarizes, and came up empty, so I removed it. Also, the source looked rather poor to be used for Wikipedia's voice, so I held off on trying to place it into the article body.

The 1/18/2015 version was far superior, the subsequent changes to it seem highly questionable, and I'm unclear that it belonged in the lede. --Ronz (talk) 01:50, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

@RonZ: Objecting to my editing "in general" tells nobody anything. As I hope everyone is, I'm always trying to improve, even after 10 years and 50k+ edits. It's not your job to educate me, but generic jabs are a waste of bits. You're dinging your own credibility via this episode. I have asked you repeatedly for specifics, but as others have noticed, you continue to bob and weave. Is that fun? If you provide details, I will do my best to respond appropriately and cordially. Lfstevens (talk) 02:19, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Please WP:FOC

I've made very specific statements. If they are unclear, please explain how. --Ronz (talk) 03:36, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I've tried and tried. Please refer to earlier responses. E.g., you talk about bias. What bias? Just claiming bias clarifies nothing. Lfstevens (talk) 07:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I note that most people read our articles on their phones. The idea that they will scroll through this endless piece would make me giggle, but I don't giggle. Lfstevens (talk) 07:56, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm afraid it appears you're ignoring my responses.

I've undone at least some of the worst of it ([3][4], and explained why. Please take far more care with your edit summaries, with taking information out of context, and with changing emphasis, while working in much smaller edits. --Ronz (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

The generic guidance you offer sounds fine to me. I thought I was already doing those things. Now I edit a single section at a time and my summaries fill multiple lines. Happy for you to undo my mistakes, if they are such, but I have yet to understand a single critique that you have offered or used to motivate a revert. Until that changes, I don't see any other path than to continue to do my best while trying to puzzle out your objections. Such is life. Thankfully, the article continues to improve despite our sort-of disputes. Lfstevens (talk) 07:10, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

OK, I'm out. The article is still basically a mess, but at least it's a good bit shorter (down from 13.2k to 8.4k words). It actually got longer towards the end as I added some balancing/updated material. A lot of the work was moving randomly inserted facts into the correct section. Hope that editors will work on that.

One thing that got lost in the lengthy discussion is the contested S/Z study from this year. I took it out, somebody added back and I left it. I still think that either it should go or that critiques of it should be added to balance it, but that's for others to work out. I'm out of time.

Cheers and thanks for all your patience and sorry for all the upset. Lfstevens (talk) 02:01, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Minimum wages

Regarding the recent back and forth over the Minimum wages section: I agree that we should be using better sources. I'd expect there are academic sources available on such topics. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 01:33, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree. There are plenty of sources (including academic ones), which detail and study if/how both Minimum Wage Laws and Basic Income can reduce POVERTY, but the only sources I have seen saying that either Minimum Wage Laws and/or Basic Income can/should/could be used to reduce INCOME INEQUALITY are advocacy organizations and individual opinions.

To clarify: POVERTY and INCOME INEQUALITY are two separate things and should not be conflated; for example Detroit, compared to NYC, has a greater percentage of residents in poverty, but LESS income inequality than NYC, because the top 1% income earners in Detroit earn ~ $150k/year, whereas the highest income earners in NYC make millions/year. So NYC has MORE inequality and LESS poverty.

This is exactly the point I have tried to make over and over about the CBO report: it studied how POVERTY overall (higher pay for some, job loss for others) would be affected by higher minimum wages; but that's not relevant to an article on Income Inequality. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 21:38, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Let's be careful to avoid ANY original research. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 22:59, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Restructuring

After letting this cool, I have some proposals for additional work. Before I begin, I solicit your views. Here it is:

Adopt post-tax/transfer as the measure of inequality for this article. Move market income and other measures into the "Other measures" section. The current article drowns the reader in too much detail, leaving them lost. PTT is the best income measure, because it reflects income that people actually have access to.
Y Merge Trends into History
Excise the punditry section (noone will scroll that far on their phones)
Rewrite Causes section as prose.
Scout out secondary sources and replace primaries.
Merge Definition section into other text, assuming that the focus moves to PTT.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/11/21/census_data_counter_warren_sanders_on_income_inequality_141786.html

Add new studies as summarized in https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/11/28/economists-are-rethinking-the-numbers-on-inequality

Lfstevens (talk) 20:54, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Why do we care about Andy Puzder's opinions? --Ronz (talk) 22:43, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. I don't propose to put anybody's opinions into the piece. On the contrary, I want to remove the ones that are still in there. I don't feel bad about pulling facts from diverse sources, including RCP. Lfstevens (talk) 00:32, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

So, we are to remove the "punditry" section, as you call it, and replace material there with this stuff above from the likes of Andrew Puzder? No, I'm not in favor of this.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 01:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for responding. Happy to leave the Puzder bit aside. And I didn't remove the punditry on my last pass because other editors thought it should stay. Without consensus, I won't do it this time either. Whatever may be wrong with Puzder, that doesn't apply to The Economist. Appreciate your comments on the rest of the proposal. Lfstevens (talk) 00:46, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I have no real objection to some of the restructuring you propose. My concern is that we might run into similar problems as last time which resulted in edit conflicts, in particular sourced content vanishing without explanation and the context of certain sections changing without due explanation or proper sourcing. Context changes to the lede became a particular point of contention as I recall. For this reason, I would suggest any significant changes be vetted here on talk before submitting, especially proposed changes to the lede. I have no objection to including The Economist article, so long as its placed in an appropriate section and not given undue weight. I would suggest the Opinions of notable individuals section.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 01:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Again I appreciate the comments, but it would be great to know which of the proposals you have no real objection to. Lfstevens (talk) 04:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I have no objection merging trends into history and rewriting the causes section as prose, so long as cited material was not lost and the context of that material did not change during the transition. I would obviously oppose the removal of the "punditry" section. I'm wary of the other changes you propose, such as swapping primary sources with secondary. Regarding this and your first proposal of making PTT the prime measure of inequality, it would definitely be prudent to post your preferred changes on the talk page before submitting them. I'm hoping other editors eventually join this discussion and offer their opinions.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 15:10, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

1) I oppose switching the entire context of the article to PostTaxes&Transfers. From my reading, when many people have concerns over IE, they often try to enact policies (unions, minimum wage, and living wage for example) that reduce IE at the MARKET INCOME side, rather than increasing top level taxes and welfare transfers. We should talk about these separately.

Many issues have multiple causes and multiple solutions; oversimplification for ease of understanding is not always the best way to go.

3) As before, I would excise the pundit section, but since others oppose, for consensus we should keep the section but confine the punditry to that section.

5) Secondary sources are preferable, but not always possible to find. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 22:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks your thoughtful comments. I will try to establish consensus as I go. On the PTT question, my issue is that the article is hopelessly complex. No normal reader will be able to sort through all of it. I will look to see if I can find more academic/policy consensus on the best measure to use to think about the topic. As I've started editing, I'm also noticing an intense focus on the 1% rather than on GINI and other traditional metrics. I don't propose changing that without consensus, but it does seem unbalanced and not consensus. Also, I don't propose substantive changes to the causes and effects sections at this point. Lfstevens (talk) 18:49, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Again, smaller edits with more specific edit summaries would help a lot. --Ronz (talk) 19:48, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

"academic/policy consensus on the best measure to use to think about the topic" - good idea! - maybe also for the top X % issue. I agree about the top 1%. It seems people trying to emphasize IE choose the 1%, and even more the top 0.1%, withOUT any reasonable justification for why. (You can always get larger IE numbers that way, than choosing quintiles, for example.) My belief is that looking at quintiles would be more appropriate, or as one org did, defined middle class as half of median household income to double median for people moving up/down from middle class.---Avatar317 ^(talk) 23:42, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

The reason the top 1% and especially the top .1 % are often emphasized in the article, and also many of the cited sources, is that the gap between them and everyone else is where the starkest inequality exists. Regarding the changes, it seems to me that the restructured history section is incomplete, given that inequality has been increasing in recent years, especially post-2016 with the current administration implementing policies which have increased inequality. The way it is structured now gives the impression that income inequality has been decreasing since the recession, when sources tell us it is currently at unprecedented levels.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 01:37, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I didn't remove anything from the History section. I added bits from Trends. The sources cited are mostly Saez/Piketty/Zucman. Yes, they focus intensely on the top of the distribution, but is that balanced? Does it represent the larger literature? The History doesn't much address 2017+, but not because I removed material about it. I welcome additions that cover it. Specific corrections officially solicited. I'd also note that this article isn't titled "Starkest income inequality". The larger topic needs to be addressed. Not working on that at the moment. Appreciate any pointers to reviews/broader sources. Lfstevens (talk) 03:54, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I wasn't accusing you or anyone else of purging material, just making the point that the section as it exists now is incomplete. The issue is the concluding subsection "2007–2016 reduction". I consider this problematic because many lay readers won't even look at the material in the subsection but only the title (kind of like those people who only read media headlines but not actual articles), and draw incorrect conclusions on whether inequality is declining or increasing. I made a small addition to the first paragraph of the History section but have not added anything beyond that yet. Regarding the issue of the 1%/.1% being represented in the larger literature, I can't say definitively ^{[citation needed]}, but I'd argue this is entirely probable, given that many works and articles I have seen on the subject of inequality do discuss the top tier of income distribution to a significant extent, and how they are pulling away from everybody else.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 04:27, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Updated proposal

Adopt post-tax/transfer as the measure of inequality for this article. Move market income and other measures into the "Other measures" section. The current article drowns the reader in too much detail, leaving them lost. PTT is the best income measure, because it reflects income that people actually have access to.
Y Merge Trends into History
Y Add relevant events/actions to History section
Excise the punditry section (noone will scroll that far on their phones)
Summarize causes section to shorten article. Rely on existing separate article to provide details. Ensure that all causes in this article are covered in separate article.
Scout out secondary sources and replace primaries.
Merge Definition section into other text, assuming that the focus moves to PTT.
Y Add new studies as summarized in https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/11/28/economists-are-rethinking-the-numbers-on-inequality

Lfstevens (talk) 02:07, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Oppose per Avatar317 arguments above
Y
Y
Oppose, unless the material within is moved to other sections, especially the long-standing material. Most of the material here was scattered throughout other sections prior to your edits.
If this is to be trimmed, it should be discussed here what gets removed and what stays.
If reliable secondary sources exist, then I see no reason they shouldn't be added as citations. I don't think this would justify the removal of material where such citations cannot be found, however.
Oppose per first bullet point.
So long as this is not given undue weight. The Economist might be a reliable source, but pushes an agenda.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:04, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Comments on proposed revisions

I agree with the proposal to use the after-tax income as our main way of communicating trends.
I think share of income going to different groups should be our primary focus when we explain the history or trends. The Gini is a challenging statistic to interpret that I believe clutters the messaging. I think mention of the Gini index makes sense where we discuss alternate measurement methodology, but should be removed from the history. Let's stick with "X% going to top 1%" type language.
Regarding The Economist article (which I recommend everyone read), it contradicts both Piketty-Saez and CBO, and until CBO changes its method I think we should relegate other research to secondary status, mainly lower in the article where we talk about alternative views. CBO is our most credible source and we should consider that the "mainstream" view until the alternatives get more support.
Regarding primary/secondary, I think we should treat the CBO as a secondary source, as they primarily use IRS data as their original source. They do analysis based on data created by other government agencies. We should use them whenever possible, as the best and most neutral source of data available.Farcaster (talk) 17:05, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Again, thanks for the thoughtful comments. Responses:

GINI is the standard for discussing the topic. It is widely used (not just in the US) and widely understood. I'm not trying to advance my opinion about it. I just think it's the consensus metric. Like any metric, it has its flaws, but that is not for us to challenge.
I added the Economist stuff, but did not use it to replace the Piketty stuff. It stands as an open discussion. Anything stronger would be WP:OR.
The Piketty crew also uses IRS data.
Yes, the punditry was well-scattered. I think it all should go, despite its length of serfice. WP does not do punditry and I don't see that it adds anything that we can't get from better sources. I won't remove it pending more support.
On Causes, I was thinking of leaving a summary statement and the top few (3? 5?) causes. 100% of the causes material in this article is already in the breakout article.
Whatever the Economist's flaws (I have my list) it is regarded as a reliable source and was already used as such in this article.

On to searching for secondary sources! Lfstevens (talk) 02:33, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

re-affirming my opposition to focusing on PTT, unless we have proof that the academic consensus is to use that, and we'd need proof of that academic consensus.

if GINI is the standard, we should use that, and in the History and Trends sections. As editors at an encyclopedia, we don't decide not to use academic models just because those models are difficult to understand; we don't tell people that Newtonian Mechanics governs Quantum tunnelling just because quantum mechanics is difficult to understand.
I agree with the above. GINI is a standard metric and the article should be structured accordingly. I think the single biggest change to the article I'd like to see is a simple graph of annual GINI in the United States over time*.204.152.61.20 (talk) 16:14, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Additionally, @Farcaster: what is the "messaging" here you are talking about?---Avatar317 ^(talk) 23:19, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Gini is one of several measures, and is uniquely useless in that it provides absolutely nothing anyone can understand other than whether it goes up or down. But it does serve to clutter a perfectly lucid explanation of the share of income of the top 1%, which everyone can understand. The "messaging" is that inequality has gotten a lot worse, but that it peaked around 2007 and has improved since due to progressive policies (i.e., higher taxes on the rich and redistribution).Farcaster (talk) 06:09, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

GINI needs no defense by me. Please cite sources for your views. I do note that GINI provides a crisp way to track changes over time and jurisdiction. Picking some segment of the population to track instead (the .1%) misses all the other changes. Lfstevens (talk) 00:37, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Farcaster: If you feel that GINI is vague and an un-explained number, than maybe one of the first sections should provide a thorough explanation of it, and maybe a one-sentence explanation in the lead before it is used. I would fully support that. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 00:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I just want it removed other than passing mention in alternative methods of estimation. People will sleep through every sentence on Gini or give up on the article, but you'll get their attention with the top 1% income share.Farcaster (talk) 18:38, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

but you'll get their attention with the top 1% income share. Oh, come on now, Wikipedia isn't supposed to be click bait. It is supposed to explain complex topics and hopefully make them understandable.---Avatar317 ^(talk) 22:01, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

An example of emphasis on PTT, from WAPO: [5]. Haven't vetted the contents. Just noticing the emphasis. Lfstevens (talk) 20:11, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

WP:LEDE: The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents...It gives the basics in a nutshell and cultivates interest in reading on --Ronz (talk) 00:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Deferred investment

@MrOllie: What's your problem with Kausik, B. N. (February 19, 2022). "Income Inequality, Cause and Cure". arXiv:2201.10726 [econ, q-fin].?

It seems like a reasonable scholarly discussion of an alternative and worth mentioning. Accordingly, I'm reverting your deletion of the comment that cites this source. DavidMCEddy (talk) 01:28, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

My problem is mostly that the IP editor (and their predecessor account which I won't out here) has an obvious COI and has been adding self citations around Wikipedia. MrOllie (talk) 02:06, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. That's a reasonable reason for deleting it.

I know that "archiv.org" is not refereed, but that's not a reason for deleting it. From my perspective, almost any work that honestly cites its sources (like this one seems to do) is more valuable than most newspaper articles, which don't.

However, if I remember correctly, authors who think their work should be cited in a certain place are asked to pose the question on the associated Talk page rather than just make the change. An exception is when an acknowledged expert is asked to contribute to an article. That exception does not seem to apply in this case. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:47, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of World Inequality Database (WID)

@Avatar317:

Net personal wealth in the U.S. since 1962

The average personal wealth of people in the top 1% is more than a thousand times that of people in bottom 50%.^[1]

The logarithmic scale shows how wealth has increased for all percentile groups, though moreso for wealthier people.^[1]

— I've read your edit comment characterizing the World Inequality Database as an "advocacy organization" while removing graphics based on data from this WID web page. However, from reading WID's self-description and Wikipedia's own WID article, the WID doesn't seem to be an advocacy organization. It seems to be a bona fide data gathering organization that is considered reliable:

For example, I note that charts on pages 13, 14, and 16 of the Congressional Research Reports' 2021 publication on Income Distribution in fact rely on WID data. Though page 3 characterizes WID data as "unofficial estimates", certainly the government's own data must be "estimates", also.

— I favor the WID database in this instance because it provides specific categorized data from 1962 through 2021, whereas most other charts encountered in this area of Wikipedia don't go back nearly as far or aren't as current.

Can you please reconsider, based on the foregoing? Thanks. —RCraig09 (talk) 04:02, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@RCraig09: Are you referring only to a comment to explain an edit?

Also, I'm confused by the sentence, "Developing country comparative data is available from databases such as the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) or the OECD Income Distribution database (OECD IDD), or, when including developing countries, from the World Bank's Povcalnet database, UN-WIDER's World Income Inequality Database, or the Standardized World Income Inequality Database.^[2]". This sentence suggests to me that there are two separate organizations with "World Inequality Database", but that looks to me to be incorrect. I found Wikipedia articles on the following:

The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)
World Inequality Database (WID)

The Nolan and Valenzuela article cited is behind a paywall, and I cannot tell from the abstract that's available for free if that article refers to both of these organizations or only one or neither.

I'm changing the wording here to match the names of these two organizations and include links to the Wikipedia articles on them, while deleting the word "Standardized". If you think what I'm doing here is wrong, please fix it while explaining your fix.

I know nothing about any incident involving "removing graphics based on data", but we need to be careful about copyrights: Someone might try to plant copyrighted material in Wikipedia article with the intention of trying to sue Wikipedia for copyright infringement. I do not see a copyright statement at wid.world. That seems to me to be a problem. I think if someone created graphs from data obtained from wid.world, they own the copyright, because you cannot copyright facts, only expression. I have created numerous graphs from sources that look similar to me to wid.world, then posted them to Wikimedia Commons under CD BY-SA and used them in Wikipedia articles.

Comments? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 11:58, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

References

^ ^a ^b "Evolution of wealth indicators, USA, 1913-2019". WID.world. World Inequality Database. 2022. Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved September 6, 2023.
^ Nolan, Brian; Valenzuela, Luis (July 11, 2019). "Inequality and its discontents". Oxford Review of Economic Policy. 35 (3): 396–430. doi:10.1093/oxrep/grz016. ISSN 0266-903X.

@DavidMCEddy: I created the two charts in question from downloaded data, so I agree with your reasoning, and there is no copyright issue involved in my charts. This issue raised by User:Avatar317 is whether WID is reliable, which it seems to be. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:54, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@RCraig09: Are those figures in Wikimedia Commons? If yes, can you put the link here? If no, what do you think about putting them in Wikimedia Commons? DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:02, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@DavidMCEddy: I've inserted the two charts above. They are in Commons. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:25, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@RCraig09: What can you say about how the WID compares with the WIID?

If they are substantively different, then it's worth discussing the differences.

If they are not substantively different -- or if you don't know how they compare -- I suggest you restore the figures deleted by user:Avatar317 and say, "See talk" in the rationale. Then the onus is on user:Avatar317.

It is my considered opinion that Thomas Piketty is the world's leading expert on inequality. If someone disagrees, I want to see their evidence. I have intermittently followed the research on this topic for years. His research is not perfect, but I have yet to see anything better. I have not yet compared WID with WIID, but I plan to do so, though I'm not actively working on that right now.

Anyway, it is not uncommon among dishonest politicians and media to label honest research as advocacy. I want to see serious documentation to support any such claims. So far I have not seen such. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:11, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm frankly not following the difference between WID and WIID, but in any event, I want to give user:Avatar317 a day or two to respond, before I replace the WID-based charts. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@RCraig09: I agree: It seems polite and respectful to give user:Avatar317 a couple of days to respond to this discussion.

I just noticed that the Wikipedia article on "the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)" says, 'Since 2009, under director Finn Tarp, UNU-WIDER has concentrated widely on the “triple crisis” of food, climate change and finance.' My superficial and tentative inference from that is that UN-WIDER may have decided that the work of Piketty's WID is so good, the UN-WIDER would likely make better use of their resources focusing on other things since 2009. That may not be the case; I don't want to take the time now to look into that. I will be interested to hear what others, e.g., user:Avatar317, might say about this. DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:50, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, the general bar for Reliablilty is WP:USEBYOTHERS, and the Congressional Research Service's use of WID data does bolster WID's reliability; but I'd like to also see other people trusting their data before we use it here.

Main reason here is that the founders: Pikkety, Saez, etc, but primarily Pikkety, have strayed from purely research to now doing advocacy against what they see as too great levels of economic inequality, and openly recommending that governments take steps to reduce it, like for example advocating for wealth taxes. (See Pikkety's books for this.) This type of advocacy leads people to overestimate/overstate the size of the "problem" they are "reporting/researching" so that others will be more sympathetic to their cause, (or presenting one-sided data) rather than objectively reporting on a situation. ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 21:56, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Sources relying on, or favorably citing, WID—on Google search limited to site:*.gov alone:

National Center for Biotechnology Information book chapter
National Center for Biotechnology Information article
Congressional Budget Office
U.S. Treasury
Bureau of Economic Analysis "Led by the creation of the World Inequality Database and PSZ, new efforts around the world have started to develop internationally consistent distributional measures..."
U.S. Federal Reserve
Congressional Research Service
UNICEF (on Senate's website)

The WID is relied upon by numerous official agencies. This U.S. Senate transcript of co-director Gabriel Zucman supports how government respects the WID to the point where the Senate allows Zucman to testify before the Joint Economic Committee. (Zucman explains, "One of our goals is to contribute to the creation of comprehensive, standardized, and internationally comparable inequality statistics that capture all forms of income contributing to GDP.") It's not "advocacy" when the data in fact supports the obvious proposition that wealth is increasingly concentrated. You User:Avatar317 haven't provided any evidence showing how the co-directors' supposed "advocacy" (testifying before a Senate committee?) affects the reliability of the data that inspired the supposed "advocacy" in the first place. Without concrete evidence, the "advocacy" characterization smacks of a conspiracy theory.
Please reconsider your stance. —RCraig09 (talk) 16:23, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with citing WID as a source. Their reports have also been featured in mainstream media including The Guardian, which I used as a citation on the Economic inequality article.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 17:25, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

The fact that highly respected government agencies are relying on WID data is good evidence that others don't see that data as biased, so I now agree that it is acceptable to use it. Thanks for discussing!

What I meant as advocacy is his books: "It’s useful as an opportunity for readers to see Piketty bring his larger argument about the origins of inequality and his program for fighting it into high relief." (NYT book review) ---Avatar317 ^(talk) 21:54, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Since I left a note at Talk:World Inequality Database suggesting additional opinions, I'll wait a while longer before re-inserting the charts. Otherwise, it sounds like consensus that WID is reliable. Thanks to all for a rational conversation! —RCraig09 (talk) 00:50, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

[1] "Income Mobility and Inequality in the United States: Evidence from Tax Data since 1979" (PDF). 2018-10-24.

[2] "Do the Rich Get All the Gains from Economic Growth?". 2018-10-23.

[WID_through_2021-3] "Evolution of wealth indicators, USA, 1913-2019". WID.world. World Inequality Database. 2022. Archived from the original on July 5, 2023. Retrieved September 6, 2023.

[4] Nolan, Brian; Valenzuela, Luis (July 11, 2019). "Inequality and its discontents". Oxford Review of Economic Policy. 35 (3): 396–430. doi:10.1093/oxrep/grz016. ISSN 0266-903X.

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