[PEN-L:128] Re: Re: The Left and Inequality

["Gar W. Lipow" <lipowg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I appreciate the  correction. It reinforces my point -- if income was
divided up more or less equally a more than 80% would be better off in
immmediate material terms (not mention the benefits of reduced
insecurity, lower crime rates )

Two questons

1). To get a feel for how more or less equal incomes would compare to
the way  people live now now, don't you have to substract capital
spending, ? Thus the revelevent figure would not be either real GDP or
direct wages, but real GDP less capital investment. When I say
revelevent, I mean to this particular aspect -- the material
advantages of equality.

2) I'd be curious to get a similar feel for what would happen if
income was redistributed among the worlds population.  The world GDP
figures I've heard are about $5,000-$6,000 per person -- which  might
not be advantagous in the industrialized world but would be a heck of
an improvement for 80% or 90% of humanity.



the

Fellows, Jeffrey wrote:
>
> By my estimates, which will be published soon:
>
> Real GDP/labor year [40hours a week x 52 weeks] in 1995 was $54,985 for
> workers 16 and over. Real GDP/person with work experience was $48,093,
> and per capita was $32,955. Of course, these figures do not include
> accumulated wealth, which is what others have mentioned. According to
> industry breakdowns in Gross Product Originating, actual employee
> compensation accounted for about 57.9% of the total.
>
> Jeff
>  ----------
> From: Gar W. Lipow
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:125] Re: Re: Re: The Left and Inequality
> Date: Monday, July 06, 1998 2:57PM
>
> Actually I think that even in terms of income that this is plain
> wrong. I recently saw the figure cited on the LBO list that if the
> U.S.GDP were distributed equally per hour worked (after substacting
> capital investment) then pre-tax earnings would be $22 an hour.
>
> This means a single earner family would earn $44,000 a year for a
> forty hour work week. A dual earner family would earn $88,000 a year.