The content of this post is something that a friend of mine posted on Facebook and which I do not want to lose. Facebook posts are notoriously good at vanishing, never to be found again.
The author goes by Debby Dootson on Facebook.
I took a big ol' hour and a half step-out while a certain someone was counting how many lies and half-truths they could pack into a speech, but thanks to social media I got to see this tidbit.
"Poverty is plummeting."
The poverty level is around $11,000 for a single person under 65 years in the US. The minimum wages in several states have been going up during the last 4 years due to state regulations being passed, which would bring even a part-time minimum wage worker over $11,000. Obviously the rate is going to go down. Nobody talks about the fact that the poverty rate is set INSANELY low, to a point where no one could survive in any part of America on that amount anyways unless they had someone else supporting them.
From the Census Bureau: "The official poverty rate in 2018 was 11.8 percent, down 0.5 percentage points from 12.3 percent in 2017. This is the fourth consecutive annual decline in poverty. Since 2014, the poverty rate has fallen 3.0 percentage points, from 14.8 percent to 11.8 percent."
Whoopty-fking-doo you managed to get it so over 10% of America still can't manage to make $11,000 a year. A 3 percentage point decrease in poverty. Let's see what the percentage point increase is in the top quintile's median income in the meantime, shall we? I'll just throw a chart in. People like them better and I think they have a bit more impact. Decide on your own. You have to look holistically to get the whole story.
In case you want to see the it in adjusted dollars, see below. This is a perfect example of numbers not telling the whole story. Someone could say to you:
"The 4th quintile is reaping the largest benefits from Trump's tax plan! See? They saw a 5% increase while the top 5% of households only saw 2.5%!"
Then you look at the numbers, and realize how much more 2% of $400,000 is than 5% of $35,000. Hmm.
Also notice that little dip on the top quintile? This is genius. It makes the powerful people with lots of money feel like they are losing out, so they will keep voting for policies that appear to support them while mainly benefiting only the highest echelon. We need to be taking notes for our next life just in case. This is brilliant.
The upper class feels victimized by the policies and sees gains being made by the lower classes (which are minimal and largely token) and therefore ask for even lower taxes and less restrictions because GAWD can't you see the poor people are making more money and here we are stagnating when we work just as hard!
God!, the longer I look at it the more genius it is. Look at that slope uptick on the top 5%. Royal scam.
I would just like to say that I am immensely grateful to have friends such as Debby. They make life so much easier to live.
