20收入不平等与贫困princch20presentation.ppt

* Source for poverty thresholds in 2006: /hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh06.html Source for poverty rate in 2006: /hhes/www/poverty/poverty06/table3.pdf Source for median family income in 2006: /servlet/GRTTable?_bm=y-geo_id=01000US-_box_head_nbr=R1902-ds_name=ACS_2006_EST_G00_-redoLog=false-mt_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_R2002_US30-format=US-30 * The poverty rate appears correlated with business cycles. For example, 1992-2000 was the longest economic expansion on record, and it coincided with a gradual fall in the poverty rate. In the early 2000s, the U.S. experienced a recession, and the poverty rate rose. Source: Figure 1, Chapter 20. Original source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. * This slide updates the data in Table 3 of Chapter 20. Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Table 4, People and Families in Poverty by Selected Characteristics: 2004 and 2005, from 2005 poverty tables. /hhes/www/poverty/poverty05/tables05.html For 2006 data: /hhes/www/poverty/poverty06.html /hhes/www/poverty/poverty06/table3.pdf * Students will recall the effects of the minimum wage from Chapter 6, which covered price floors and ceilings. A few additional notes about the minimum wage: Yes, it helps the poor at no cost to the government. But there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The minimum wage transfers income to workers from firms (or rather, their owners) and from consumers, who will end up paying higher prices for goods made with unskilled labor. Some people think of the minimum wage as a law that prohibits people from working if they aren’t able to find a job that pays at least $6.55 an hour. * With a negative income tax, the marginal tax rate is as low for low income persons as it is for high income persons. This is in sharp contrast to other welfare-type programs, which take away benefits as income rises, thus creating very high effective marginal tax rates for the poor. * A cash payment would let workers buy whatever they think they most need. Many economi