Talk:United States/Archive 60

Archive 55

←

Archive 58

Archive 59

Archive 60

Archive 61

Archive 62

→

Archive 65

Inequality, tax incidence, and AP survey

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• Ellen's replacement of the very long-standing (by several years) housing development image with yet another politically-motivated inequality graph needs to be discussed first. The image is long-standing because it is neutral and cannot be disputed, and this graph does nothing but continue to over-emphasize inequality issues in the country.
• The removal of both graphs in Government finance (including the ITEP one) as a compromise has gone uncontested for weeks. The re-addition of just one of the graphs threatens to stir the pot once again on an issue that had been settled.
• "Four out of five U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives." This has already been described as a frivolous, highly vague statement that is not elaborated on at all, and does not add anything valuable to the other details in the section. Its removal weeks ago was not contested by anyone, except now EllenCT.

In Ellen's 2-3 week-long absence this article has remained relatively stable, and changes made weeks ago had been agreed on or uncontested, and it shows that there are only a couple of users here that catalyze edit disputes and article instability. Cadiomals (talk) 08:22, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Regarding your deletions:

• The housing image is not an image of housing development, just suburban subdivision-style ranch housing which is neither unique to or particularly illustrative of the United States, given that such style of housing exists on every continent except Antarctica, nor illustrative of the section it is in. The article is filled with uninformative photographs. Replacing a photo of suburban housing with an image showing the rise of the top 1% of incomes, as was specifically requested in other comments above, objectively improves the article and the section. There is no evidence that inequality issues are over-emphasized in the article. There is abundant evidence that inequality issues are not given the weight due their importance in economics.
• The Heritage Foundation income tax incidence graph is objectively and mathematically incorrect, and was rightly removed. Even VictorD7 admits that corporate taxes are borne in large part by low income consumers. The ITEP graph is supported by the many sources which correctly attribute corporate tax incidence, even if a few recent think tank sources do not do so correctly. Pretending that there is no objective mathematical truth is the worst kind of abuse of the NPOV policy, tantamount to "he-said-she-said" journalism in the face of obvious factual accuracy of one side and inaccuracy of the other, or the view from nowhere which is rejected by reputable editors with reputations for fact checking and accuracy. I will continue to replace the accurate graph in accordance with the comments about it from the majority of respondents concerning it in the sections above.
• I will not be bullied because I turned my attention to other work for half a month. The AP poll indicating that 80% of Americans must deal with joblessness, low income, or welfare is not reflected in any other statements in the section or the article. There is no evidence that it is either frivolous or vague, and the assertion that it is not elaborated in the source cited is objectively false as anyone reading the source can see. I strongly object to such falsehoods being used to try to bully editors.

The comments above indicate that the article has been losing editors because they are exhausted dealing with an editor who chooses to draw inferences from what he admits are contradictory premises. Who wants to read an encyclopedia by those who know they are harboring falsehoods, but allow their ideology to guide them down mathematically incorrect paths anyway? Not me, and I refuse to turn my back on this article just because one such person willingly edits with an admitted competence deficit. EllenCT (talk) 11:20, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

• When a long-standing image or piece of info is removed and subsequently disputed, it should be discussed first based on WP:BRD. The image is illustrative and follows relevant guidelines and recommendations, and no one has disputed it until now. You think there are a lot of "uninformative photographs" in this article because they are not all conveying the message you want them to.

• If your proposed replacement image is added there will then be two graphs portraying growing economic divides in the country. That is placing too much emphasis and weight to inequality in this summary section and article. And if you add your proposed graph, the graph showing the growing divide between "productivity and median incomes" ought to then be removed. Drilling it into the readers' heads that the US has inequality problems through multiple paragraphs and two graphs is placing undue weight and is a form of soapboxing and advocacy when there are many other aspects of the economy that are only brushed upon. Your argument that it is "crucial to current political debates" has absolutely no relevance in this summary article. Go nuts in Income inequality in the United States.

• I don't know as much about the ITEP tax graph. I just know that both graphs that used to be in the Government finance section were disputed, the section was trimmed and they were both removed as a compromise, and that this change had gone uncontested for weeks despite continued activity and discussion by many editors on the talk page, which also refutes your claim that it was uncontested because editors were driven away. Nevertheless, this will be put to a definitive vote and I of course will respect consensus if many really want it re-added.

• That statement is vague. It's the same as saying 95% of people have had either a headache or breast cancer at some point in their lives, or that 90% of Americans own either a car or an airplane. 80% of Americans deal with joblessness and low-income at some point in their lives? I'm surprised it isn't 95% percent. It is no surprise that most Americans have likely been jobless at some point if they are laid off or look for a new one; that is typical of almost every country. And who hasn't been low-income at some point in early adulthood, when one is still in an internship or entry-level job? Very few readers are going to check the source for clarification. The statement conveys nothing of educational value to the reader, except for furthering the biased tone in the section you wish to convey: that Americans somehow experience undue hardship relative to other countries.

The best way to resolve this of course is to bring in other editors' opinions for the survey below. Cadiomals (talk) 13:31, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

EllenCT just told multiple outright lies. I already corrected her mischaracterization of my views on corporate taxation here (diffs [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]) so she has no excuse for invoking my name and repeating that falsehood here. I've always consistently said that corporate tax incidence should be attributed to owners since they're the ones most directly paying them, that they're only borne by others (not just consumers) in the same way all taxes are borne by others, and that we shouldn't cherry-pick a single tax type for political reasons and treat it differently when determining tax incidence. And what "Heritage Foundation income tax incidence graph" is she referring to? The graph was drawn by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation based on Tax Policy Center numbers, not the Heritage Foundation, and she hasn't shown it's "inaccurate" in any way. The Tax Policy Center is far more widely cited and mainstream than ITEP (and its liberal lobbying arm, CTJ), and, as my link to the archived discussion shows, she was unable to answer my basic questions about how her graph even got its numbers, how it attributes corporate incidence (or anything else), or why its internal federal rates are such an outlier compared to the TPC and CBO, both of which corroborate each other and contradict ITEP over time. A single editor bent on soapboxing should not be allowed to destroy this article's fragile stability with loads of massive, undiscussed, contentious edits, or get away with outright lies about other editors and content. We can't let this article be hijacked into becoming a platform for one sided partisan propaganda. Even her flimsy edit summary justifications betray her partisan POV agenda, repeatedly citing things like "material central to recent political debates" or "campaigns". She's a disruptive talking point spammer with no regard for the Talk Page process or encyclopedic quality. VictorD7 (talk) 20:47, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

You have not exactly been helpful in the progress of this article either, Victor, so I would advise you be more mellow this time and also keep your responses more concise. In my opinion your full revert of Ellen's changes as opposed to my partial revert was uncalled for and catalyzes edit wars. Both you and Ellen's insistence on fully getting your way has been a roadblock in achieving a balanced and stable article and frustrating for the majority of editors who are less politically motivated and more willing to compromise. Both of you will need to respect consensus no matter which way it goes. Cadiomals (talk) 22:51, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually I'm one of the primary reasons this article has improved over the past year and in particular in recent weeks, and I have a right to correct outright falsehoods, especially when my name is invoked. I didn't fully revert Ellen's changes as I left the one proposal that had been specifically discussed. The other changes are controversial and opposed. I obviously haven't gotten my way on many things, but one difference between me and Ellen is that I respect the Talk Page process and have shown that I'm willing to participate in it. Significant changes should be discussed here before implementation, especially to the politically sensitive sections. A return to mass, unilateral, undiscussed edits will undo everything that's been accomplished in recent weeks, sparking off new waves of continuous counter editing, bloating, and likely edit warring. VictorD7 (talk) 23:51, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Survey

There is currently a dispute (and a discussion above) about whether a few pieces of information are fit to be added to the Government finance and Income, poverty, and wealth sections. Please see the arguments in the thread above and indicate with "support adding" or "oppose adding" as well as your opinion:

Income inequality

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Changes in real US incomes for the top 1%, middle 60%, and bottom 20% from 1979 through 2007.

Should EllenCT's proposed image to the right be added to Income, poverty, and wealth, replacing the long-standing (by several years) housing development image and alongside a similar image also showing growing economic divides? Or should it be traded out with the other graph while keeping the housing image? What do you think of the emphasis the section currently places on income inequality?

• Oppose adding based on my arguments above. Cadiomals (talk) 13:30, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, for reasons given. Also the graph is intentionally skewed in appearance by 1% of the pop. which was disproportionately boosted by the bull stock market of much of the period. Ellen's own past inclusion observes that real median income rose over most of that period, but the skewed graph hides the increase by featuring an infinitesimal portion of the country. VictorD7 (talk) 21:41, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support per the ability to reason correctly when contradictions are eliminated. The proposed graph is more informative than the graph proposed above which only shows one variable (proportion of incomes in top 1%) instead of three (the middle 60% and lower 20%) -- who speaks for the lower 20% on Wikipedia? EllenCT (talk) 00:03, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Ellen is referring to the "graph proposed above" that was rejected by most respondents, so to be clear this isn't a choice between those two options. VictorD7 (talk) 00:48, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Support, per ellen. Pass a Method talk 20:37, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose A graph showing this might be useful, but this graph is not satisfactory. It tries to show three different line with widely varying magnitude on the same linear axis, which means the actual values of the two lower ones cannot be determined. It would probably be better to use a single line for the top 1%, but if all 3 are really wanted a log scale would be needed or separate graphs--these would, though, be less dramatic. DGG ( talk ) 00:15, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Why not have a graph that shows the change in incomes for the population as a whole, rather than choosing certain sections of the population? Its just confusing this way. Rwenonah (talk) 23:55, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

So do you support or oppose adding this particular graph? This is the specific issue right now; we can discuss possible alternative graphs afterwards/separately. Cadiomals (talk) 01:54, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

• OpposePer objections above.Rwenonah (talk) 12:22, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. Graph needs adjusting. →Davey2010→→Talk to me!→ 21:43, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose excessive detail for this specific article. Any arguments on the merits are irrelevant as far as I am concerned. If this information has merit as claimed, it would be perfectly appropriate in a different article (not saying it does, though, I have not evaluated it as such) but it simply is too esoteric for this overview article --Jayron32 18:22, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support The general rule is that more information is better than less, and people looking at Wikipedia for information on the United States will most likely use Wikipedia as their sole source. The information is relevant and valid so it should be included. Remember: Wikipedia seeks to be encyclopedic, and the information is relevant and informative. Damotclese (talk) 19:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
• Qualified Support I think the graph could be improved (as has been noted, scale obscures information about the two lower categories), but failing that, there are no disputes about accuracy and it is a good graphical summary of an important issue. I've seen variants of this in blogs that are generally considered right and left of the political spectrum and do not believe graph is POV. As to those who believe too detailed, this summary graphic seems appropriate to overview article. Note: Here from WP:FRS Haven't previously been involved with this article. --Federalist51 (talk) 18:34, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
• Qualified Support As above, it'll always be seen as a "dodgy" graph when the Y Axis is skewed like that. If that issue was fixed, I'd fully support the inclusion of that graph. But until the graph is fixed, I don't support it. --HighKing (talk) 11:36, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Aside from rounding errors, any graph showing this kind of data absolutely needs to account for 100% of the people. Because it leaves out 19% of the population, I'm suspecting that someone's begging the question. Bring in a graph showing the average incomes of the bottom 20%, the middle 60%, the upper 19%, and the top 1%, and I'll be much more inclined to support it. I also note that Jayron's got a solid argument about this kind of graph being out of place in such a broad article; Damotclese's argument fails on WP:SS grounds. More is better than less, but we can get to the "too much" point like any other encyclopedia; the only difference is that our virtually unlimited space means that we split extra details out to a more specific article instead of removing them entirely. Nyttend (talk) 01:36, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose The original source[6] (which is specifically a blog estopped by WP:RS) states: Income inequality in the United States has been rising since the 1970s. What is the most effective way to succinctly convey this fact? Here is my choice which rather clarifies that the purpose of the graph is to accentuate the "income inequality" claim. The heading of Kenworthy's blog post is "The politics of helping the poor Politics and rising income inequality" and as a blog post it does not meet WP:RS for any purpose of making a claim -- and a graph is, indeed, a "claim" here. Collect (talk) 01:49, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Support Speaking from a social scientist standpoint, income inequality is one of the primary indicators for what is happening in a society - much more so than housing. It should definitely be included. LK (talk) 04:10, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This looks like it was pulled from a "We are the 99%" pamphlet. What about the top 5%, 10%, top 20%? Why just the bottom 20% and 60%? Why the 1%? This looks like it was created to make a specific point regarding inequality and highlight a distinction to push a POV, which I don't think is appropriate. If we're going to include something, it should try to include a more full range and not cherry pick the figures that make the most shocking graph. Morphh ^(talk) 14:50, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per RfC comment: I oppose this particular graph. Each of the following flaws would need to be addressed: DGG (needs log scale on y-axis); Collect (source issues); Morphh (choose most relevant deciles, with justification as to why they're relevant). Also, I noticed that the time interval runs from 1979 to 2007. It is now nearly 2014. There IS more current data, from highly reputable sources, that include 2011. I know of one such chart from a recent OECD econometrics publication (October 2013) which is public domain. There are others. There's the issue of relevancy to the U.S.A. as well, in considering inclusion of a chart like this. The Emmanuel Saez charts compare the U.S., Germany, and Japan from 1910 to 2011. I would also suggest that income isn't even the most relevant information to present, but rather, asset holdings. Yearly income varies widely, especially for the very wealthy. Net asset value does not, and a chart with assets on the y-axis instead of income would be more meaningful. It is a trend that is unique to the USA in comparison to many other developed and even some developing nations. We need a good chart here, or nothing at all. Otherwise, our credibility will be diminished or possibly be considered political advocacy, which is entirely unacceptable.--FeralOink (talk) 21:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Tax incidence

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

ITEP estimate of the total effective tax rate for federal, state and local taxes (personal and corporate income, payroll, property, sales, excise, estate, etc.) by income level in 2011.

Should the ITEP tax graph to the right be re-added to the Government finance section or should the section remain without an image?

Oppose adding based on my arguments above. Cadiomals (talk) 13:30, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Oppose, for reasons laid out above. Graph is from a partisan lobbyist and its accuracy is disputed by multiple reliable sources. VictorD7 (talk) 21:41, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Support per Ostry and Berg (2011). EllenCT (talk) 23:20, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

That link doesn't appear to mention the graph (unless I missed it) or be pertinent to this topic. VictorD7 (talk) 00:48, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Can you think of the reason that I think it supports it? EllenCT (talk) 01:03, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd hate to presume. VictorD7 (talk) 01:12, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Your best guess? EllenCT (talk) 16:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• Support per reasoning cited by ellen Pass a Method talk 20:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose a graph that tries to lump state & local (which can vary wildly) and federal taxes (a combination of over 100 tax systems) along with mixing different tax bases (income & consumption) is not appropriate. You can't even measure these the same way. Any such graph is filled with tons of assumptions and heavily modeled for tax incidence and considering the source, highly partisan. It's not even clear how they came up with these figures. If you're going to include graphs on taxation, federal taxation should be a different graph than state taxation, and consumption taxation should be separate from income taxation when showing distributional effects in order to make any logical sense out of the graph. Morphh ^(talk) 14:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support Oppose until an alternative source is found for the same information. The graph shows an important reality of local and state taxes for education including property taxes and sales taxes, for instance. Nearly a flat tax ideal by income distribution, with breaks in the aggregate for the most disadvantaged? The reality of American economic life-as-taxes is perhaps a conservative ideal? Where's the beef? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:54, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Virginia, where were you when I removed both of the graphs from Gov't finance weeks ago as a way to finally stop the bickering over it? If you really wanted to include this graph, why didn't you raise an objection on the talk page? Cadiomals (talk) 04:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

• The beef is it's inaccurate. It was cooked up by a far left lobbyist group and it's internal federal component is massively contradicted by the far more prominent Tax Policy Center (a joint Brookings and Urban Institute project), especially (but not only) for the top 1%, where there's around a 10 point difference. The CBO also tracks closely with the TPC over time, with the federal only top 1% tax rate around 30%, not around 20% (where ITEP has it), from year to year. By contrast the ITEP chart has no corroboration whatsoever, and an opaque methodology we can't examine. The differences aren't a one year fluke, but are consistent over time, as the link in my above post lays out. Doesn't any of that bother you? Shouldn't we hold off on making such a controversial chart the section image in a country summary article? The graph is disputed, unverifiable partisan propaganda. VictorD7 (talk) 19:54, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
• Here's a Tax Foundation piece criticizing the ITEP chart and showing a very different one for total taxation, with a bottom quintile rate of 13% and the entire top quintile (not just the top 1%) averaging 35.6%. VictorD7 (talk) 22:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

That "piece" is neither accurate or in agreement with the peer reviewed literature. EllenCT (talk) 04:14, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Hogwash. So far I'm the only one between us actually backing up what I say. Whether you agree with it or not, it's just one more prominent source disputing your chart. VictorD7 (talk) 04:57, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Oppose The CBO and Tax Policy Center are far more mainstream and reliable sources for this kind of information. It's absurd to include such a heavily disputed partisan graph in a country summary.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:38, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and as a solution and compromise we opted not to add any graphs to that section at all, including the one added by VictorD7. That was fine for everyone, but now EllenCT wants to stir the pot again, insisting we re-add just this one and drawing our attention back to a tired debate that had already been settled. Cadiomals (talk) 01:49, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Your characterization of the issue which has played very if not most prominently in recent election cycles as settled lacks accuracy. Deleting both graphs was obviously not "fine for everyone". EllenCT (talk) 04:16, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I meant everyone except you, because both graphs were removed three weeks ago and no one said a word about it despite continuous discussion on the talk page, mostly because people wanted to finally move on from that issue and the bickering over those graphs that had been occurring weeks prior. As such, the issue of including those graphs was settled, and it showed that you were really the only one insistent on advancing your political agenda. I couldn't care less about your babble regarding "election cycles". Cadiomals (talk) 04:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Settled it may be, but the editor opening this string sought multiple editor input regarding adding information to the encyclopedia. Could someone repost Victor's chart? (Is there really a question as to whether corporations are people too? I thought I was the only one in the country who disagreed with the Supreme Court at Citizens United.)

It seems to me that Ellen might agree to Victor's chart now for the sake of presenting something on total effective tax rates, as the information conveyed is a relatively flat tax rate compared to national income tax, and that is informative to the general international reader unfamiliar with how federal regimes tax their populations in actuality. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Are you referring to the Heritage Foundation's chart which doesn't apportion corporate taxes to consumers? Are you aware of how few sources agree with that? Victor frequently cites all three. Meanwhile in reality.... EllenCT (talk) 16:35, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't know, does it show a relatively flat tax for total effective tax? If so it is of much the same utility to the general international reader, the difference in sources is a wash. ITEP, Heritage, CBO and Tax Policy Center were alternate sources mentioned above. To date in this string, I only see ITEP which generally corresponds to my earlier study, a relatively flat tax for total effective tax in the U.S. -- which is why I support ITEP until another source can be agreed to... which Cadiomals informs me cannot be done... for now ?? Might you allow something from CBO or Tax Policy Center, are their charts readily available at commons? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 18:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

There is no "Heritage Foundation" chart. Ellen's confused (or lying again) and apparently referring to this PGPF chart of TPC numbers for federal tax rates. Note how its top 1% rate is a few points higher than ITEP's purported total rate. There are no good overall tax incidence charts, because it's notoriously difficult to study local/state taxes with precision. The only one I know of is the ITEP chart, but we know that's problematic because its internal federal component is contradicted so dramatically by the CBO and TPC, the two most prominent and widely cited outfits that do tax incidence. It was also lambasted by the Tax Foundation, which actually produced its own using TPC federal and ITEP state/local numbers, not that ITEP's state/local figures are necessarily credible either. It would be better to have no chart than to post misinformation cooked up by a partisan lobbyist. The relative flattening you mention (still nowhere near a flat tax) is already described in the text, which is a perfectly fair way to handle it. This also isn't about corporate taxation. That's a dishonest smokescreen tossed out by Ellen as a diversion. She has no idea how ITEP even attributes corporate taxes. Unlike the CBO and TPC, they don't provide component breakdowns and their methodology is opaque. Their chart says they count it, but even if they attributed zero to the top 1%, which would be ludicrous and would contradict a statement I found and posted by their spokesman, it still wouldn't account for the discrepancy. BTW, while Ellen's link has absolutely nothing to do with this topic, I have to say I'm shocked, shocked I tell you that liberals' predictions scored better in a cycle where Democrats won. It's a shame the "study" only looked at one election, and didn't examine if conservatives' predictions were better in a year Republicans won. VictorD7 (talk) 18:52, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Insert - Actually it's the Urban-Brookings TPC VictorD7 (talk) 16:46, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

The U.S. tax regime is highly regressive unless one takes into account federal and state and local taxes. That is the best picture of the actual effect on the individual. This is mostly attributed to local property taxes for education funding education, not national or state funding sources, leading to wild inconsistencies of funding levels from place to place and over time for any one place.

Here is something from an VictorD7 sourced as generally unbiased, Wall Street Journal's the Tax Policy Center. It shows effective payroll tax rate in a manner which I find consistent with prior study. But for the first quintile progressive feature, the curve fitted to the bar graph is generally flat until the regressive tax structure for the richest incomes.

The effective tax rate including state and local taxes is more like a flat tax. Do we have an alternative to the ITEP chart which shows the federal, state and local together in a federal system? I believe that would be instructive for the general international reader living in a centralized form of government. --- and lacking an alternative to the ITEP graph for now, we should use it because it does not show the statistical inequity that federal income taxes alone would in error. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:03, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I just posted an alternative by the Tax Foundation above that gives a radically different total overall breakdown. ITEP has zero corroboration and its internals are disputed by the TPC, CBO, and Tax Foundation. Misleading people with misinformation is not in Wikipedia's interest. TVH wants to use a hotly disputed, extremely partisan chart.....just because? We aren't obligated to have any image. If you don't want an alternative, then we don't have to add one. No one's seriously proposing a different image. And to my knowledge the TPC (which I never said is unbiased, it leans left but is the most prominent tax incidence outfit and produces reliable data) has nothing to do with the WSJ. Perhaps TVH is confused. I'm not sure what the point of the payroll tax chart is (the TPC chart he apparently objects to already showed the federal breakdown by component, including payroll), but in terms of international comparison (if that's what he was getting at) the US is more progressive than Europe in every tax type. I encourage TVH and anyone else here to actually read the sources posted. VictorD7 (talk) 22:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Lol; the reason VictorD7 uses the Tax Foundation source is because he can't find a real source supporting his argument (don't take my word for it, just ask him). More nonsense from a hardcore right winger. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 22:17, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

LOL! I've just irrefutably made my case on every point using sources that include the Tax Policy Center, the CBO, the Tax Foundation, and even ITEP. And that lame, substanceless reply is all the hard core left winger Somedifferentstuff can muster. Telling. VictorD7 (talk) 22:38, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you've provided ZERO SOURCES other than TF. -- Have you applied for a job with the Koch Brothers yet??? -- Ahhhhhhhhhhh, the boy with the broken mirror. ---- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 23:07, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

^Ad hominem drivel. I've posted sources all over this section and page. Stop trying to disrupt the discussion process. VictorD7 (talk) 23:13, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Your reply is, "I WILL PROVIDE NO SOURCES HERE!". Brilliant right-wing garbage. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 23:27, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I suppose until Somedifferentstuff is condemned by other editors and/or banned for trollish disruption, I can repost sourced evidence every time he repeats his lie.

Effective Federal Tax Rate for the Top 1% in 2011

TPC - 30.4%

ITEP - 21.1%

No reason his presence should be a complete waste of time. VictorD7 (talk) 00:12, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

But Victor, I like the linked chart, it shows increases in property tax which is my point, and the steeply regressive corporate tax which is Stuff's point. Two problems. First, it does not aggregate the changes by income segment, second and more importantly, you have not downloaded it into the Wikicommons for our use in this article. Is there not a blanket release for online publication with attribution?

My point is that taxes are effectively flat when incomes are arrayed low to high on an x-axis, not 45-degrees slope positive (progressive), not 45-degree slope negative (regressive). Most local schools are mostly funded by local corporate taxes, regardless of the effective income tax on them, so the aggregate taxes of federal, state and local show a nearly flat tax in aggregate, not the regressive outrage if income taxes were taken alone, and the ITEP chart shows that overall effect, regardless of the corporate tax detail variances that you have successfully pointed out. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:08, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Not sure which "linked chart" you're referring to, but maybe you missed when I checkmated Ellen. Her own graph source calls corporate taxes "very progressive" and attributes them to shareholders, completely refuting what she'd been claiming (guessing). No meaningful variation in corporate incidence has been shown, much less by me. ITEP's huge discrepancy with multiple reliable sources remains unexplained. Stuff doesn't see corporate taxes as regressive (and he had no point; he was trolling). I'm not sure where you got that idea. I haven't seen a chart showing property taxes, but income taxes are progressive (not "regressive"), and you keep making unsourced claims. Yes, there's flattening effect when total taxes are considered, but it's nowhere near as much as ITEP shows (side point - even they call overall taxation "progressive", not "flat"; doesn't have to be a 45 deg. slope). ITEP's 2011 top 1% rate was 21.1% federal + 7.9% state/local = 29% shown in graph. If the federal component is off by around 10 points, then so is the overall number. ITEP's openly stated purpose is to agitate for higher taxes on "the rich". If casual, uninformed readers see that chart, showing the top 1% paying a lower rate than the preceding percentiles, then they'll likely think "Yeah! We should raise taxes on the rich!" However, a more reliable chart properly showing the top 1% paying the highest rate wouldn't have that impact. It was 30.4% federal in 2011 (per TPC), a few points higher now, and in the ballpark of 40% if state/local taxes are added. ITEP's chart isn't harmless misinformation we can tolerate to illustrate a broad principle. That's a meaningful difference.

If you're saying you like the Tax Foundation chart combining TPC federal rates with ITEP state/local ones, then you're free to try to add it to the commons. Wiki rules forced me to go through a lengthy process to get the PGPF chart added, though PGPF itself was great and instantly granted permission. I'm sure the Tax Foundation would too, if permission is even required. I haven't explored their copyright situation recently. My only concern would be relying on ITEP's state/local data, which, while not explicitly contradicted, is uncorroborated and may be as wrong as their federal data. But it wouldn't hurt to add the graph to the commons so it's available during future discussions. VictorD7 (talk)

• Oppose excessive detail for this specific article. Any arguments on the merits are irrelevant as far as I am concerned. If this information has merit as claimed, it would be perfectly appropriate in a different article (not saying it does, though, I have not evaluated it as such) but it simply is too esoteric for this overview article --Jayron32 18:25, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support The general rule is that more information is better than less, and people looking at Wikipedia for information on the United States will most likely use Wikipedia as their sole source. The information is relevant and valid so it should be included. Remember: Wikipedia seeks to be encyclopedic, and the information is relevant and informative. Damotclese (talk) 19:02, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose adding Too detailed for this overview article. Including it gives undue weight to a graphic which, at the least, is open to challenge as being POV. Note: Here from WP:FRS Haven't previously been involved with this article. --Federalist51 (talk) 18:39, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

@VictorD7. When y-axis numbers are close together, the curve of the x-axis is flat. A curve through the ITEP top shows progressive but flattening across the first 80% under $68,700, @ 17, 21, 25, 28. The curve kinks at the top 40% over $68,700 becoming relatively flat, @ 28, 29, 30, 30, 29, because 28, 29 and 30 are close together (reported increments at truncated percentages).

That is, effective income rate is pretty flat overall across federal and state and local taxes, because regressive state sales taxes on the poor and regressive local property taxes on the rich counter both federal and state progressive income tax effects. And the general international reader will not be made aware of that phenomenon in a federal republic such as the U.S. without a chart of net tax incidence including federal, state and local taxes.

The ITEP chart including federal, state and local taxes is more nearly comprehensive than federal income tax charts alone which show huge regression in the top 20% tax levels in the case of your TCP income tax incidence chart, -- which I believe is misleading as a single source of taxation information in the U.S. for the summary article. Did you find an alternative to the ITEP chart to post here? If so, would you be so kind to do so for the sake of the discussion? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 03:53, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I guess you missed all the stuff about ITEP's accuracy being dramatically disputed by multiple sources. If you don't understand at this point that the contradiction is in the internals, so it doesn't matter that the TPC and CBO are federal only (it's still apples to apples with the ITEP federal component), then I don't know how else to walk you through it. I even linked to an alternative overall taxation chart by the Tax Foundation after you made the same request earlier that clearly illustrated these concepts by combining ITEP state/local numbers with TPC federal numbers, showing a very different slope, and explicitly criticizing ITEP's methodology. The text already discusses the more regressive nature of state/local taxes, which change neither the fact that overall US taxation is progressive (per even the ITEP outlier's wording) or that it's more progressive than European systems (the difference is even starker when heavily regressive European consumption taxes are compared with US sales taxes). The findings are robust enough that precision isn't necessary to make the general observation. The section currently has no chart, so there's no danger of readers being misled by one either way. We shouldn't add a hotly disputed, partisan chart just for the sake of having a chart. VictorD7 (talk) 19:45, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that ITEP is used as a source in the combined federal, state and local tax incidence for the link you gave me. Okay, agreed to no chart at this time. Simpler is better in the summary article. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't like incidence graphs that try to combine sales taxes and income taxes, because sales taxes are often misrepresented as being overly regressive (which is what is happening here). Partisan sources often consider savings as untaxed income as they try to measure for a single year, instead of tax deferred (they'll spend it during retirement, in a couple years when a child goes to college, or donate it). They distort the definition of measuring incidence by calculating the tax on something other than its tax base - mathematically invalid. As if any money saved is instantly tax free forever, making any measure of that tax burden completely false. Another one, are commercial property taxes born by the property owner, the renter / consumer, or split? Then you got the fact that your combining 50 different tax structures (some that have no income tax, some that have no sales tax, different corporate tax rates) with different exemptions on each into a single graph. It would certainly be nice to have a single graph that just "summed it up" but any such attempt will include lots of assumptions and manipulation - difficult to do fairly. Morphh ^(talk) 14:14, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

AP survey

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Ref.: Yen, Hope (28 July 2013). 80 Percent Of U.S. Adults Face Near-Poverty, Unemployment: Survey. Associated Press and Huffington Post Retrieved July 28, 2013. EllenCT (talk) 00:07, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Should the statement "Four out of five U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives" be added to the Income, poverty, and wealth section? Is it adequately precise or too vague of a statement?

• Oppose adding based on my arguments above. Cadiomals (talk) 13:30, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose as a hopelessly vague and pointless lumping together of categories that's solely designed for emotive impact and mood setting. VictorD7 (talk) 21:41, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support per the original Associated Press sources. EllenCT (talk) 00:07, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• Support. Pass a Method talk 20:39, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose until a scholarly source is found to put the information into a larger context...good argument for a safety-net society, though. And the U.S. practice obviously more nearly approaches the European welfare state model than many suspect, even in the midst of a fierce national cult of individualism and reliance on family first. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:03, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

How do you feel about "While racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to live in poverty, race disparities in the poverty rate have narrowed substantially since the 1970s, census data show. Economic insecurity among whites also is more pervasive than is shown in the government's poverty data, engulfing more than 76 percent of white adults by the time they turn 60, according to a new economic gauge being published next year by the Oxford University Press"[7] then? EllenCT (talk) 03:56, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

There will be no more non-summary details added to those sections, that's it; Income, poverty, and wealth is at its peak in terms of detail. If it isn't already there you can add such information to articles like Income inequality in the United States, Poverty in the United States or even Race in the United States. But it has no place here. And if all you're going to say is that such details are "crucial" and "central to debates in election cycles" don't even bother responding. Cadiomals (talk) 04:13, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Support; if the source backs up the material I find it to be relevant. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 18:26, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

The following is copy-pasted from my response to Ellen so you don't have to look for it, as to why this piece of information is useless:

"That statement is vague. It's the same as saying 95% of people have had either a headache or breast cancer at some point in their lives, or that 90% of Americans own either a car or an airplane. 80% of Americans deal with joblessness and low-income at some point in their lives? I'm surprised it isn't 95% percent. It is no surprise that most Americans have likely been jobless at some point if they are laid off or look for a new one; that is typical of almost every country. And who hasn't been low-income at some point in early adulthood, when one is still in an internship or entry-level job? Very few readers are going to check the source for clarification. The statement conveys nothing of educational value to the reader, except for furthering the biased tone in the section you wish to convey: that Americans somehow experience undue hardship relative to other countries."

This statement does not express any truly relevant facts. Cadiomals (talk) 04:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The facts are relevant because they prove governmental assistance is not universally and permanently disabling as opponents sometimes argue. We just need a scholarly source in context of the fact that assistance is overwhelmingly of short duration. The outlier long duration "culture of dependency", the problematic 15%, can often be addressed with literacy education and trade education as has been found effective in various state programs. Scholarly context is what is required for the WP article. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:53, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I just have a problem with the way the statement is worded. Saying that 80% of Americans have either been reliant on welfare or unemployed at some point in their lives is like saying 80% of Americans have either had breast cancer or the common cold at some point in their lives. Can't you see how useless such a statement would be? A scholarly source could provide less vague and more specific information as opposed to sensationalist news reports. Cadiomals (talk) 13:01, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose excessive detail for this specific article. Any arguments on the merits are irrelevant as far as I am concerned. If this information has merit as claimed, it would be perfectly appropriate in a different article (not saying it does, though, I have not evaluated it as such) but it simply is too esoteric for this overview article --Jayron32 18:26, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
• Comment. The direct quotation is almost certainly political propaganda. Lies, damned lies, and Mark Twain. 99% of adult americans at some point in their lives have murdered their spouses with an assault rifle, stolen from their neighbors with a sawed-off shotgun, or watched television on which the gun debate sometimes comes up -- ban guns today! 99% of americans, at some point in their lives, have been unemployed for nine consecutive months -- counting newborns! 99% of americans believe the moon landing was a hoax, or the twin towers were a federal plot, or that someone who borrows a writing utensil from them may never return it to them -- you just don't realize how deep the conspiracy goes!

  This POV-pushing *in* the sources themselves is inherently a problem, of course; Reliable Sources are *not* required to be NPOV, themselves. So the question is, since wikipedia *is* required to be — or at least strive to be — neutral, is there a way to make use of the HuffPo data, which is illuminating for the readership, without pushing the HuffPo POV on the readership? In other words, does the "relative to other countries" additional data exist that Cadiomals mentioned? If so, then maybe a relative-to-other-countries-chart would be useful, especially if we have historical data, showing the trend over time. Maybe 80% is good compared to other countries. Maybe the triplet-category is a new-fangled yet highly-explanatory statistical mechanism invented by some brilliant sociology PhD, and HuffPo is just reporting one portion of the research team's groundbreaking new results.

  But I suspect that no such datasets for other countries, let alone historical, exist... and if so, that itself indicates the x-or-y-or-z nature of the cobbled-together summary was intended to advance an agenda. Now, even if the the quote itself is still worthy of being included in wikipedia somewheres... perhaps Ariana Huffington#Political Positions? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:19, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose adding Host of reasons this doesn't belong in this article. Tone is not encyclopedic. Lumps together a number of different facts in a way that ends up being POV and, without elaboration, isn't very informative. To explain in detail would not be appropriate for this overview article. Note: Here from WP:FRS Haven't previously been involved with this article. Federalist51 (talk) 18:59, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Corporate tax incidence text

Endless toing and froing with no real consensus either way. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:27, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Is "U.S. taxation is generally progressive, especially the federal income taxes, but the incidence of corporate income tax has been a matter of considerable ongoing controversy for decades." preferable to "U.S. taxation is generally progressive, especially the federal income taxes, and is among the most progressive in the developed world."? EllenCT (talk) 00:59, 2 December 2013 (UTC) The former is preferable because it is more accurate and compliant with the WP:NPOV policy, in that order. The latter is cherrypicked puffery unsupported by the most reliable sources. EllenCT (talk) 00:59, 2 December 2013 (UTC) Actually the latter, long standing version you've altered without prior discussion is undisputed and less poorly written than your new sentence. We might be able to reach an agreement on including corporate incidence material, but shoving it into the first sentence renders it confusing at best and gives undue emphasis to a small portion of taxation that has no bearing on overall US tax progressivity vis a vis other developed nations, or on whether overall US taxation is progressive (even your own outlier far left CTJ source concedes it's "progressive"). You haven't even bothered to construct an argument for your misleading edit's legitimacy. VictorD7 (talk) 01:19, 2 December 2013 (UTC) This element of the discussion relates to the tax incidence chart above which shows a nearly flat tax rate if state and localities property and sales taxes are included for income segments. National policy is progressive, local and state are regressive, by and large. Comparisons across central governments and federal governments are difficult without aggregating national and local taxes together. Also, when something does go to narrative, limit reference notes to two, and expand the notes to include multiple sources, as a matter of WP style. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 07:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC) Look closer. Even the inaccurate, far left lobbyist graph you're referring to doesn't show anything close to a "flat tax". The entire right half only covers the top 10%. As proved above, its federal component also dramatically understates rates for high earners compared to the TPC and CBO. Here's yet another critique of the ITEP chart by the Tax Foundation. They give a far different overall tax incidence chart at the bottom. None of that directly relates to this discussion though, because Ellen hasn't shown that the discrepancy is due to corporate tax differences, and even if it was, the findings about the US having a more progressive overall tax system (not just federal) are extremely robust. Europe has an outright regressive tax system that relies heavily on consumption taxes. As the Northwestern U. study and media sources explain, even their income tax structure is more regressive than America's, and their consumption taxes are more regressive than our sales taxes (which feature various exemptions). Of course other countries have corporate taxes too, rendering the corporate incidence question pointless to this issue, and they're only a small percentage of taxation anyway. Please read the sources. They're actually quite clear and decisive. The partial flattening caused by state/local taxes is already described in the text. There's no reason to overstate it with a hotly disputed, unverifiable chart from a partisan lobbyist. VictorD7 (talk) 20:12, 3 December 2013 (UTC) VictorD7, could you please explain the terminology you use. If non-partisan groups like ITEP are "far left", what superlatives do you use for social democrats, democratic socialists, communists, trotskyists, maoists and anarchists? Are anarchists "far far far far far far far left?" TFD (talk) 21:43, 3 December 2013 (UTC) It's not "non-partisan". It even has a liberal lobbying arm called Citizens for Tax Justice. Forget the labels though. The pertinent issue is that its numbers are dramatically contradicted by multiple reliable sources. Isn't that supposed to matter? VictorD7 (talk) 22:17, 3 December 2013 (UTC) I agree the contradiction is dramatic. But you have already admitted that corporate tax is borne by consumers, so by your own definition the sources which do not attribute corporate tax incidence to anyone but the owners and corporate employees are not reliable. And while you have found "multiple" such sources, they are not peer reviewed, because the peer reviewed literature attributes corporate tax incidence in the way you said it should be attributed. Until you resolve this contradiction, you have no path to competent editing on the topic. EllenCT (talk) 04:09, 4 December 2013 (UTC) Your lies are tedious, Ellen. I said no such thing. You're conflating tax incidence with economic ripple effects. Even your own ITEP/CTJ spokesman said investors pay corporate taxes. I posted the quote for you from the ITEP website. Maybe they also attribute some to consumers (what about labor?), and maybe they don't (you don't know and haven't been able to find anything concrete), but corporate taxation wouldn't account for the large contradiction anyway. You haven't cited anything from "peer reviewed literature" because the links in question don't help your case and have nothing to do with this discussion. The TPC and CBO are far more mainstream, cited, and reliable than an uncorroborated, outlier ITEP chart. VictorD7 (talk) 04:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC) So now you are saying corporations don't pass on tax increases to their customers? EllenCT (talk) 16:31, 4 December 2013 (UTC) Those are economic ripple effects (and to labor, and to other businesses, just like income and all taxes; we shouldn't cherry-pick), not tax incidence. VictorD7 (talk) 18:56, 4 December 2013 (UTC) Would you please answer the question: What proportion of corporate taxes do you believe are borne by consumers? EllenCT (talk) 05:07, 7 December 2013 (UTC) If one defines "borne" as tax incidence, then 0%. Of course what matters is what the sources do. Now stop dodging and finally answer my question: Precisely how much, if any, corporate tax does ITEP attribute to the top 1%? The CBO and TPC both provide that answer. Can you? If not, then your whole fixation on corporate incidence is a red herring. VictorD7 (talk) 00:24, 8 December 2013 (UTC) That isn't what tax incidence means at all, and you know it. I am asking in the sense that you meant when you said, "I tend to agree with you that corporate income taxes are passed on to consumers." Musgrave et al. (1951) derived 45.5% by observing which parameters of economic models best fit actual outcomes, which is the same method the ITEP uses today, as does the U.S. Treasury's Office of Tax Analysis, which says: "A naïve view of the incidence of the corporate tax is that shareholders bear the burden of the tax through lower after-tax rates of return. This naïve view ignores the possibility that the tax will be shifted onto consumers through higher prices, workers through lower wages ... or other types of capital as capital shifts out of the corporate sector in response to the lower after-tax return offered by corporations. To move beyond this naïve view, a model of economic behavior is necessary to guide predictions about how the burden of the corporate income tax will be distributed. Much of the literature on corporate tax incidence has focused on building such models and, depending on the assumptions, these models have generated a wide range of predictions."[8] Modern simulations and empirical derivations (see Table 1 on page 17 here) say that consumers bear from 57% to 75% of corporations' tax. The only sources which claim 0% are the few which you've cherry-picked. So what do you really believe, Victor? How much corporate tax is passed on to consumers? I've answered your question, now you answer mine. EllenCT (talk) 03:46, 8 December 2013 (UTC) You know that people can lie by ripping a line from context or misrepresenting something, like your recent "Nazi" edit summary did. Here's the rest of my quote (again), per your own link: I tend to agree with you that corporate income taxes are passed on to consumers and others, but then I think other taxes are at least partially passed on in various ways too, as I illustrated earlier with my income tax hike on the rich guy comments. That said, if one is going to develop effective tax rate incidence charts, then corporate taxes should be imputed to the owners, since they're the ones most directly paying them. That's because there's no way to precisely account for the largely hidden economic ripple effects of corporate or other tax types, as your own Treasury source indicates. You failed to answer my question. For example, this TPC analysis attributes a corporate rate of 6% to the top 1%. What does ITEP attribute? I already answered your question about consumers (0%), so answer mine. You're obfuscating. Why are you citing a 1951 paper that has nothing to do with any modern outfits or graphs being discussed, when you haven't even posted proof of how ITEP attributes corporate incidence? Here's a quote I've posted before from ITEP's own site: "All taxes have to be paid by somebody at some point," says Steve Wamhoff, legislative director at Citizens for Tax Justice, the liberal lobbying arm of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a research group. "The corporate tax is paid by the owners of corporate stock and business assets." I'm not cherry-picking. The TPC and CBO are the two most prominent tax incidence outfits out there, whether you like how they attribute corporate incidence or not. ITEP is a third, less prominent tax incidence outfit that produces outlier results. Since we've established that you don't even know how ITEP attributes corporate incidence, and that it wouldn't account for the discrepancy with reliable sources no matter how they distributed it, this corporate incidence tangent is a red herring. It's amusing seeing you pretend you believe that corporate taxes are regressive, even quoting a Bush administration paper, when we both know you'd oppose slashing or eliminating the corporate tax, just as ITEP would (unless I missed some anti-corporate tax activism on their part). You're willing to say stuff you don't believe just for the short term goal of making taxes appear less progressive than they really are, in hopes of fueling support for tax hikes (income, capital gains, probably even corporate). You're not even cherry-picking, you're desperately grabbing at straws. VictorD7 (talk) 07:22, 8 December 2013 (UTC) Update - Searching on ITEP's website for "corporate taxes" yielded this page by CTJ, their liberal lobbying arm and your graph source. Here are the best parts: "Third, the corporate income tax is ultimately borne by shareholders and therefore is a very progressive tax..."; "Corporate leaders sometimes assert that corporate income taxes are really borne by workers or consumers. But virtually all tax experts, including those at the Congressional Budget Office, the Congressional Research Service and the Treasury Department, have concluded that the owners of stock and other capital ultimately pay most corporate taxes." How about that? VictorD7 (talk) 07:50, 8 December 2013 (UTC) "America has one of the lowest corporate income taxes of any developed country, but you wouldn’t know it given the hysteria of corporate lobbying outfits like the Business Roundtable. They say that because Japan lowered its corporate tax rate by a few percentage points on April 1, the U.S. now has the most burdensome corporate tax in the world. The problem with this argument is that large, profitable U.S. corporations only pay about half of the 35 percent corporate tax rate on average, and most U.S. multinational corporations actually pay higher taxes in other countries. So the large majority of Americans who tell pollsters that they want U.S. corporations to pay more in taxes are onto something. Large Profitable Corporations Paying 18.5 Percent on Average, Some Pay Nothing Citizens for Tax Justice recently examined 280 Fortune 500 companies that were profitable each year from 2008 through 2010, and found that their average effective U.S. tax rate was just 18.5 percent over that three-year period.[1] In other words, their effective tax rate, which is simply the percentage of U.S. profits paid in federal corporate income taxes, is only about half the statutory federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent, thanks to the many tax loopholes these companies enjoy. Thirty of the corporations (including GE, Boeing, Wells Fargo and others) paid nothing in federal corporate income taxes over the 2008-2010 period. You might think that these companies simply had some unusual circumstances during the years we examined, but we find similar tax dodging when we look at previous years and the new data for 2011. For example, GE’s effective tax rate for the 2002-2011 period (the percentage of U.S. profits it paid in federal corporate income taxes over that decade) was just 1.8 percent.[2] Boeing’s effective federal tax rate over those ten years was negative 6.5 percent, (meaning the IRS is actually boosting Boeing’s profits rather than collecting a share of them).[3]" -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 20:13, 8 December 2013 (UTC) I'm not sure what the point of that stuff is, but it underscores what I've already proved with quotes above about CTJ supporting corporate taxation, and viewing it as progressive. For the record, the US not only has the highest nominal corporate tax rate, but one of the highest effective ones. ([9],[10]) VictorD7 (talk) 22:15, 8 December 2013 (UTC) No more blogs, please! If Huffington Post is an unreliable source, there's no real reason the Tax Foundation's blog is more reliable. Rwenonah (talk) 22:23, 8 December 2013 (UTC) The Tax Foundation is a think tank, and I only posted this to respond to quotes from the lobbying outfit (CTJ) cited above, but don't worry, it's an irrelevant tangent. I'm glad to see you're not high on the Huffington Post as a source though, since it's currently used as a source multiple times in the Income section. VictorD7 (talk) 22:32, 8 December 2013 (UTC) This is so pathetic! Here we go again with the walls of text and filibustering. As long as there is this kind of arguing going on about these charts, they will not be added, as they are not needed in this summary article. There are other issues in this article and we need to move on. People visit this article to get a general overview of the country. As of right now the tax chart (which is currently tied in terms of support/opposition) and the 1% chart (majority opposition) will not be added to this article when it comes off protection, and I will do anything I can to stop anyone who tries. It would be a huge shame if this article is locked yet again and indefinitely, as there are many innocent editors who actually want to make constructive, non-politically motivated contributions to it. If readers wish for detailed coverage of things like taxation they will go to the appropriate main articles like Taxation in the United States, where those graphs and plenty of others already exist. Not here. Bottom line, it's high time for us to move on to other things. Cadiomals (talk) 04:05, 9 December 2013 (UTC) Huffington Post is really used as a source? Seriously? Rwenonah (talk) 20:42, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

We should wait at least a couple of days at least until several opinions pile-up before deciding whether or not to add the specific pieces of information, and there ought to be an over two-thirds majority. Any consensus gathered should be and will be respected. Cadiomals (talk) 13:24, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Why not a week? EllenCT (talk) 23:20, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I said at least a couple of days so a week is fine.

Thank you. EllenCT (talk) 00:07, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Consensus is mixed at best, so let's accept Legobot's month. 180.158.95.3 (talk) 06:43, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I have submitted a request for full page protection of the article for a few days until this issue is resolved in a civil manner to prevent further edit warring. Cadiomals (talk) 00:55, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't consider accusations of edit warring civil. I am happy to wait a week, as long as other editors understand that you tried to revert more than you included in your RFC. EllenCT (talk) 01:08, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

"Accusations" of edit-warring when there have been several reverts over the past 24 hours, including ones made by you? The concept of an RFC for consensus also seems to have completely gone past your head as you still chose to restore your changes anyway. That's not how it works. Keep in mind that you are the one who sparked all this by making many sudden changes after two weeks of article stability, and the article's edit history testifies to this, so there can be no disputing that fact. I will admit I inadvertently reverted more than I intended and VictorD7 was of no help, but SomeDifferentStuff's restoration should more than suffice for now. No more changes ought to be made to the article until we have several other users contributing their opinion on the above issues, it's as simple as that. Have some patience, and if others agree with you, it will manifest itself here. Cadiomals (talk) 01:13, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

No significant, undiscussed changes should have been allowed. The remaining ones have lowered article quality and consensus should have been sought for them one at a time. Flooding the page with multiple simultaneous edits renders meaningful Talk Page discussion difficult at best and tends to dissuade most observers from participating. VictorD7 (talk) 01:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Query.

Productivity and
Real Median Family Income Growth
1947–2009.

Real incomes change for top 1%, middle 60%, and bottom 20% 1979-2007.

on income-inequality. The housing image should stay and a graph should be displayed, --- as is allotted to other sections. Can the "Dual image" convention be used to pair both graphs side by side -- right justified iaw WP:ACCESS for visually impaired? The general reader will know to click on the image to enlarge it were they concerned to read each graph in greater detail than the format allows, supporting narrative provides the context. The two graphs together show two distinct aspects of the same reality, and the two graphs together I would support. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:39, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

At this point it would be a lot of images to cram into that significantly shortened section. If the two graphs were to be placed side by side, both would have to be small enough not to squeeze the text next to it, basically forcing the reader to click the image to clearly see it. Another problem is that the 1% graph is significantly taller than the median income graph. I believe we should keep the housing image and choose one of the two graphs; any more seems like cramming too much into one section. And don't you think illustrating the same phenomena with two images is redundant? Cadiomals (talk) 10:41, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

They do not illustrate the same phenomenon, although they are related. Which is more than one can say for the photograph of a ranch house subdivision and anything unique to the U.S. EllenCT (talk) 11:09, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I took the liberty of making a trial run of the two images above. I am surprised at how poor the resolution is, but I thought it was worth a try. Other editor reaction? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:34, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I like it, but I would prefer the data plotted on the same x-axis with different y-axes. What program can produce .svg charts directly? EllenCT (talk) 01:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Historical marginal income tax rates for the lowest and highest income earners in the United States, not including capital gains.

I wish there was some way to combine this one. EllenCT (talk) 21:15, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• RfC comment Don't know about how good the graphs are, but I can say the tract house picture is so bland and uninformative that one might as well link to a random picture. ^walk victor falk ^talk 10:49, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Is that not the point, the blandness of a majority of the population which is in suburbia tract housing, large square footage for the common man, better constructed than Latin American shanty towns, but nevertheless built with balloon framing, plywood and drywall instead of better European materials of stone, lathe and plaster, --- roofs that last only 20 years, not the 200 years of thatch or slate? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:36, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

You might think it's bland but it isn't uninformative because it is a fairly good representation of how the majority of suburban middle-class Americans live and a portrayal of the average standard of living in the country. The sprawling, uniform suburban style shown here is also fairly unique to Northern America, as Europe is more densely packed. More important than this though is that it is a long standing image that not everyone agrees on removing, and that Ellen had planned on replacing with yet another redundant graph which gives undue weight to representing inequality. The dual graph above might be more tolerable. Cadiomals (talk) 12:07, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Why do you say that inequality is over-weighted in the article, given [11]? EllenCT (talk) 05:13, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

As it currently is, I think inequality has just enough weight in the article and in this section in particular. You were planning on replacing a long-standing photo with yet another graph, which some obviously did not agree with. Like I said, the dual image above might be a compromise, though many still disagree with how the info in the 1% graph is presented. Also, the article you linked to, while interesting and informative, ultimately has no relevance when determining what is sufficient for a summary article which is meant to have a limit on details. I don't know how many more times you have to be reminded this article is not and will never be your soapbox. Cadiomals (talk) 07:24, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

There is a way that all three graphs can be combined, because the categories are shared along with the y-axes. There is no support for trying to trick people in to believing that taxes are more progressive than they are or that the top 1% of income earners have gained less than they have. Elucidating those points in the face of an active effort to obscure them is hardly soapboxing. And it's right to show how the difference is offset by incomes failing to keep pace with productivity. Why aren't you going after the source of inaccuracy instead of the people who want to improve the article? EllenCT (talk) 15:08, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This picture does not represent the characteristics of sprawling American suburbia particularly well. At first glance, it could be from anywhere in the western world. Also, the habitat of a particular segment of the population is not illustrative of "Income, poverty, and wealth" in the US in general. ^walk victor falk ^talk 05:33, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Housing is an indicator of income, poverty and wealth. The image is typical of where a majority of the population resides in every region of the country in the U.S. And while there may be such places somewhere else in the western world such as France or Belgium, I did not see any such places in my brief visits there observing by plane, train, bus or taxi. Is it true that a majority of French now live in tract housing in suburban Paris, Cherbourg and Marseille, or is tract housing in fact distinctively American for a majority in every region only in the U.S. in their millions? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:13, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed on all points; this image is an accurate indicator of the general standard of living of the majority of the population and fairly unique to North America, though the bottom line remains that it is long standing by years and there are people against its removal. No one ever argued over it until Ellen proposed its replacement with an even more contentious image. If people really thought it was a useless image I imagine it would have been replaced long ago. Cadiomals (talk) 11:53, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

"It's been there for years" sounds like a rather weak argument. If people can't agree upon an image of certain minimum quality, then there should be no image. And saying "it would have been replaced long ago", after first saying "it can't be replaced for it's been there for so long" strikes as a... rather circular argument. ^walk victor falk ^talk 12:09, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Insert @ victor falk. Okay, the image of tract housing in suburbia is uniquely typical of where a majority of the population live for the U.S. as a whole and for a majority within every region of the U.S., -- it is typical in a way distributed in the millions, which is found in few other countries, though perhaps some provinces of Canada? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:01, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

The arguments for why the image is effective and ought to stay (beyond just being long standing) are already here, so don't just ignore them. And an image that is long-standing in a highly visible article that is always evolving could be interpreted as implicit approval of its value to the article. Ellen has been the only one raising hell about issues that have already been settled. We should actually be sticking to the subject of whether the image she wants to replace it with is agreed on, and so far it doesn't have widespread approval. Cadiomals (talk) 12:53, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I still object to the graph on the right, since its use of data for only parts of the American population is both confusing and seems to be clearly trying to present a POV.Rwenonah (talk) 17:16, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I like the housing picture but object to both the above charts as inappropriate POV and shoddy construction in the income breakdown case. The current graph erroneously implies that income should necessarily correlate precisely with productivity (apples and oranges), cherry-picks a potentially aberrational starting place where this is depicted as having been the case for a few years, and makes no mention of the impact of technological progress or globalization, the obvious factors likely driving the recent divergence if it in fact exists (I haven't seen anyone verify EPI's claims). It's based on a single section sentence that was only added ex post facto as a flimsy excuse for adding the graph by an editor who had spent weeks trying to add the graph first back when the section didn't even mention the word "productivity". As bad as that is, the new proposed income breakdown chart is even worse for reasons I and others have already laid out. Adding both of them would be abysmal. Both graphs are essentially niche, political talking points. Why not something more neutral, like showing a breakdown of income by age over the course of an average individual American's life? Not that the SUBsection needs more than a single image anyway. Of course amid all the "inequality" increase talk, there's currently no mention of the nation's changing labor force demographics, due to things like the influx of millions of low skilled illegal immigrants in recent decades or women entering the work force in huge numbers from the 1980s onward. The historical comparison omits the fact that the top 1%'s share was at its record low point in the 1970s it chose to start its comparison in, that said share is largely driven by the stock market, and that the top 1%'s share more often than not increases during economic growth periods while sharply declining during economic downturns, raising questions about its significance. VictorD7 (talk) 00:38, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I support both graphs. The 1% material carries significant weight as the 1% has been widely reported on and the "Productivity and Real Median Family Income Growth" is significant in terms of economics as it shows a pronounced divergence beginning around 1979. In other words, as an example according to the graph, if a family built 2 bicycles a week and was paid $50 in 1979, they built 6 bicycles a week in 2011 and made only a little more income. Have a look at the graph. This is highly relevant in terms of economics and has been studied. The tract housing photo isn't real interesting but many Americans live in this type of housing so I don't have a significant objection to it. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 19:13, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

You're assuming the same "family" was making bikes in 1979 and 2011, and at roughly the same income level, ignoring that the individuals making up each quintile have changed over the years, as has the manufacturing process. If the process is more mechanized now, then one would expect greater productivity with labor being cheaper per unit, greatly benefiting consumers. There's no reason to assume income and productivity would or should necessarily mirror each other indefinitely. VictorD7 (talk) 22:26, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

• This entire discussion misses the forest for the trees here. This article is meant to be an overview article on the country in question, and ALL of these items represents a level of detail which is not normally expected in an overview article such as this. No one is arguing per se that Wikipedia shouldn't cover these topics at all, just that this article may not be the appropriate place for them. By putting such detail into this article, it throws off the balance by presenting far too much detail in an article of this type. It's WP:UNDUE purely because this specific article can't be long enough to present a complete picture of these highly detailed subtopics, so by presenting single surveys, or studies or whatever in this article, it puts the perspective of THOSE specific surveys into too much prominence. Those surveys can be covered in more appropriate detail in other articles at Wikipedia. They just don't belong here. --Jayron32 04:27, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Non-constructive back-and-forth

This is exactly what I've been saying this whole time, and most editors agree. But there are one or two people here who absolutely insist on turning this article into their political soapbox (most likely wanting to take advantage of its high visibility), and cannot distinguish between info appropriate for this summary article and details more fit for main articles. Just a month ago, this article was even more saturated with excessive detail and has seen a net improvement since then when much of it was removed, but the fight against the editor(s) who initially opposed their removal continues, and people like myself are forced to stay vigilant so details aren't gradually re-added. Cadiomals (talk) 04:49, 9 December 2013 (UTC) For versions of "most" which are currently less than 50%. Again, counteracting a disinformation campaign is not soapboxing; it is the opposite of soapboxing. EllenCT (talk) 08:02, 9 December 2013 (UTC) Income inequality isn't just a distinguishing characteristic of the United States, there is evidence that it is affecting the U.S. more than anywhere else, and the U.S. in turn is dragging the whole world down because it's the largest economy. So, I see this as a conflict between WP:COMPREHENSIVE for salient facts and WP:SUMMARY for irrelevant details. Has anyone presented evidence that income inequality is not a distinguishing characteristic of the United States, or that it is worse in any other OECD country, or that it isn't affecting the entire world economy? EllenCT (talk) 08:02, 9 December 2013 (UTC) Income inequality is higher in the OECD countries of Mexico, Chile, and Turkey, and even higher in many non-OECD countries, while growing inequality is a problem that plagues almost all countries. So it is far from a distinguishing characteristic, you just like to constantly compare the US to the EU. But once again, that's besides the point. Income, poverty, and wealth as well as a few other sections have reached their peak in terms of appropriate detail. All important summary facts in I, P, and W are already covered, including over a paragraph's worth of info on inequality and an image, all of which cover the growing divide and provides statistics on wealth distribution in appropriate summary style. You seem to have poor judgment when it comes to distinguishing between salient and excessive details as you initially opposed all removals of content under the argument that all of it was crucial for this article, until consensus proved to be overwhelmingly against you. So it should be no surprise that we ought to be wary of any more additions you try to make. If you want to write a treatise on why income inequality is ruining this country feel free to try that in Income inequality in the United States. Not here. Cadiomals (talk) 12:26, 9 December 2013 (UTC) Are you comparing the pre-tax US Gini index to the Gini index of the other countries after tax transfers? Why do you think I compare the US to the EU, constantly or otherwise? Why do you constantly call my attempts to clean up after the editor who can't decide whether corporations pass their taxes on to their customers immature? If you were mature, you would be helping instead of postulating that the only way to return to good article status is the frozen imposition of the status quo and censorship of the most controversial issues in recent national political debates. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil isn't the creed of a mature editor. EllenCT (talk) 14:08, 10 December 2013 (UTC) Stop lying about corporate incidence and other stuff, Ellen. Your own source refuted you. This has been about cleaning up your messes. VictorD7 (talk) 19:15, 10 December 2013 (UTC) I'm not lying, I'm citing the peer reviewed literature reviews (Table 1, page 17, 57-75%.) At this rate, you might find your fifth non-peer reviewed source saying customers bear 0% of corporate taxes by the end of February. Why some editors see your amateur hour garbage as worthy counterpoint to careful simulations and empirical studies is beyond me. But I'm not worried because you've already said you think corporations pass their taxes on to consumers, so all I have to do is point out the endless stream of falsehoods you produce while you willingly harbor the contradiction. EllenCT (talk) 06:13, 11 December 2013 (UTC) I wonder if all could agree to taxing all income alike, zero-10% corporate tax, zero tax on profits reinvested or increasing employee wages, and 50% rate on all profit taken in stock speculation, that is from stock sold within 18 months of purchase? Oh, well, maybe not, that is not sourced to any top-300 think tank, but let's stop calling one another liars. It hurts my ears. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:14, 11 December 2013 (UTC) You've been caught in numerous lies, from your infamous covert edit attempt under the misleading "Nazi" edit summary to your repeatedly debunked claims about my position on corporate incidence. In this case your pertinent dishonesty is pretending that "corporate incidence" accounts for the massive discrepancy between your graph and multiple reliable sources, when your own graph source (the non-peer reviewed source you've been fighting so hard to include) explicitly states that it attributes the "very progressive" tax to shareholders, just as the CBO and other sources do, and that "corporate leaders" who argue otherwise are incorrect. Even the TPC paper you just linked to examines investor versus labor incidence (not "consumers" as you've been previously arguing), surveys what few empirical studies exist on the topic (which disagree with each other), and concludes that "This analysis has shown that the corporate tax remains a generally progressive aspect of the tax code, regardless of the incidence assumption....Furthermore because the corporate income tax is small relative to other tax sources, assumptions about corporate tax incidence have little effect on the overall progressivity of the tax code." BTW, that same TPC attributes 100% of corporate incidence to investors. You've presented no tax incidence charts that don't attribute most or all to investors. Since you've been here I and others have had to repeatedly explain basic concepts to you, correct your atrocious reading comprehension, tolerate your trolling, and unravel your blizzards of drivel. You're all soapboxing enthusiasm, but you're not educated and/or bright enough to grasp the issues you preach on. You wrecked the article, and it's taken a lot of work to clean up your messes. VictorD7 (talk) 19:33, 11 December 2013 (UTC) Can we cease this pointless back and forth for now please? You guys seem to be oblivious to the fact that you've been going around in circles recycling the same things this whole time, which is why if this article were left to you guys it would not move forward at all. Like the old saying, if you have nothing new and constructive to add at this point, don't bother saying anything at all. Time to move on. Cadiomals (talk) 21:00, 11 December 2013 (UTC) I'm not oblivious to that. If the article was left to Ellen and any other individual (including you) it wouldn't improve. I agree about it being long past time to move on, but if she continues to post falsehoods I'll continue to refute them, lest casual readers be misled by unchallenged BS. There's already been too much of that in recent weeks. VictorD7 (talk) 21:09, 11 December 2013 (UTC) You seem to not care that she has been posting the same "falsehoods" and you have been posting the same "refutations" about the tax stuff every time it's brought up. Also, audacious but more than true, I single-handedly catalyzed the clean-up of much of this article. Before, you and others were just piling on more and more excessive detail. Sorry, but your idea of "improving" the article was heaping on more biased information which you believed would counteract other already excessive and biased information, instead of subtracting it per WP:SS. Even though you agreed with most of my goals, you were unable to see the real underlying problems on your own, otherwise you would have acted on them long before. Few of your 240 edits to this article (more than most others) have been subtractions of excessive information, so I'm doubtful that this article would have truly "improved" if left to you. That's all I have to say before I start going around in circles again myself. Cadiomals (talk) 23:15, 11 December 2013 (UTC) If not for the noise generated by me standing up to this crap, Ellen and her cohorts would have run roughshod over this article, bloating it into a totally one sided propaganda platform stuffed with countless low quality edits, with you off whistling contently somewhere and occasionally making minor lede tweaks. So stuff your attitude. I should be accepting your gratitude. WP:NPOV and article quality matter too, not just length. My goal was to resist what was happening and slow it down long enough to cultivate opposition, getting as many observers to finally get off the bench as possible. I successfully drew you in. You admitted to not even reading most of Ellen's recent edits closely and sure as hell aren't qualified to judge mine (especially without specifics), but at least you served your purpose in helping to stop what was happening. Just keep your glasses on when commenting. Make sure your vague claptrap and self righteous posturing are pointed in the proper direction. VictorD7 (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2013 (UTC) You have one of the highest number of edits here at 240; instead of piling on more excessive biased information to counteract other excessive biased info, you could have simply removed it under WP:SS and WP:UNDUE. I agree that your ruckus drew my attention, but is that really something to be proud of, when everything I did is everything you could have done yourself? Like arranging an RFC for outside editors to comment on the bloating and pov of certain sections and thus gathering definitive consensus. Instead you chose to label everyone who disagrees with you a leftist liberal socialist, a great way to make people more receptive to your concerns. In short, you could have done everything yourself in a better, more civilized way, and it wouldn't have taken until November for many problems to be fixed, by me. I won't be replying to this discussion anymore lest I hypocritically draw myself into the pointless back-and-forth too, and I'll go ahead and collapse it also because it's nonconstructive. Cadiomals (talk) 01:11, 12 December 2013 (UTC) More blind nonsense from you. Yeah I've got a lot of edits here. So? That was sort of my point. I wish I hadn't had to do your work for you. And no, I tried removing inappropriate material, only to be repeatedly reverted by the same 2-4 posters who were simply bypassing the Talk Page process. Where the hell were you then? Where were you when I was gone for a whole month and griffin was spamming low quality edits on an almost daily basis the whole time? No one was paying attention. There needed to be someone other me involved, and the first such poster ended up being you. Don't kid yourself, without my support your streamlining effort would have crashed and burned. I had to directly support your edits multiple times, RFC notwithstanding. The article needed involved, extended participation, not just driveby TP commentary. And no, I didn't label "everyone who disagrees" with me a "leftist liberal socialist". That's an idiotic thing for you to say. I accurately labeled a few diehards causing this mess "leftist", because they are, but more importantly they weren't good faith editors receptive to reason, as you discovered and pointed out yourself, so it didn't matter what they were called. Finally, all my edits, even my counterpoints, were perfectly legitimate items that improved the article. You haven't articulated any specific problems with them. That's more of the vague, posturing claptrap you keep spouting but can't back up the way I can when I critique something. In fact I checked out the 2008 version on the day it received "good" standing, and noticed that, despite being much shorter, it actually contained many of the same items I've either personally added (or apparently re-added) over the last year or suggested adding (e.g. cancer survival rates, uninsurance breakdown, defense spending/GDP to balance the contrived SIPRI presentation, etc.). There were some bad things too, but overall the article was better then than now, and certainly than it was in early 2012. You did help on balance, but things would have gone a lot smoother if you had actually paid attention to the details, at least after you got involved. If you or others had done so earlier, I wouldn't have had to create an account in the first place, much less go to all this effort over the past couple of months. You're welcome. VictorD7 (talk) 01:48, 12 December 2013 (UTC) Jayron may have misunderstood my effort at lightening up the Victor-Ellen show as soapbox of my own. My point was I object to name calling, and especially the repeated use of "lie" for "mistaken" or "misunderstands" -- name calling shows a lack of WP: ASSUME GOOD FAITH. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 12:23, 13 December 2013 (UTC) I don't use such language lightly, but in this case it's apt. Bad faith has been repeatedly demonstrated over an extended period of time. Ellen's "mistakes" have been repeatedly corrected in ways she refuses to respond to, only for her to repeat them elsewhere. That many of these "mistakes" are false claims about me, and that she's prone to suggesting admin sanctions like banning me when she becomes frustrated that I'm an impediment to her agenda (like today in her section below), make a swift and clear response all the more important. VictorD7 (talk) 19:50, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Better textual descriptions of economic inequality

Currently, all the article says about income inequality is "The rise in the share of total annual income received by the top 1 percent, which has more than doubled from 9 percent in 1976 to 20 percent in 2011, has had a significant impact on income inequality,[358] leaving the United States with one of the widest income distributions among OECD nations.[359][360]", citing sources from 2013, 2005, and 2007, respectively. I propose updating and expanding that with summaries of:

1. "Changes in capital gains and dividends were the largest contributor to the increase in the overall income inequality. Taxes were less progressive in 2006 than in 1996, and consequently, tax policy also contributed to the increase in income inequality between 1996 and 2006. But overall income inequality would likely have increased even in the absence of tax policy changes." --Hungerford, Thomas L. (December 29, 2011). Changes in the Distribution of Income Among Tax Filers Between 1996 and 2006: The Role of Labor Income, Capital Income, and Tax Policy (Report 7-5700/R42131). Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
2. "The average increase in real income reported by the bottom 90 percent of earners in 2011, compared with 1966, if measured at one inch, would extend almost five miles for the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent." --Johnston, David Cay (February 25, 2013). "Income Inequality: 1 Inch to 5 Miles". TaxAnalysts.com. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
3. "Single black and Hispanic women have a median wealth of $100 and $120 respectively; the median for single white women is $41,500." --Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth, and America’s Future (PDF). Oakland, California: Insight Center for Community Economic Development. Spring 2010. Retrieved 1 January 2014.

I understand that space is tight in such a large article, but some or all of these would inform readers more accurately about the true economic condition of the US than what we have now, and therefore would be well worth hundreds of extra bytes. This is the most important issue facing the U.S. according to a recent economics Nobel winner. EllenCT (talk) 14:21, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Removed patronizing personal attacks without discussion of improving the quoted excerpt
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
First I read #1 and thought, here we go again. Then I read #2 and now I think you must be joking. At this point I'm having a very hard time taking you seriously or assuming your suggestions are in good faith. Can you take this stuff to Talk:Income inequality in the United States and leave us alone here at Talk:United States, please? The bottom line is the Income, poverty, and wealth section is probably going to be tightened further in the future (and possibly renamed). What we have on income inequality now is a perfectly concise summary. If readers want to learn more about it they will read dedicated sources or WP articles, and that's that. Please stop keeping us on these issues when most of us want to move on. Look at the most recent RFC and you will see you have already been shot down on your past suggestions. The only thing I would possibly support is a brief mention that income tends to be divided along racial lines, which I think should displace your stupid retirement savings sentences. Otherwise, no matter how important you say they are, this is not the right article for your kind of proposals and I'm wondering when, if ever, you will realize that. Another user brought this up and I completely agree: almost all your edits are tendentious. Cadiomals (talk) 18:26, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I did make a suggestion. It's called not adding the first two because they are inappropriate for this article, and probably adding something along the lines of the third one; except instead of focusing on women it should be a brief mention of race in general, and if added it should displace your pointless and out-of-place stats on retirement savings. Also, I don't make such accusations lightly, but given your history (not just in this article) it would be quite difficult at this point not to label your edits and suggestions as tendentious. It's the same every time you bring this topic up, and it's really been enough. Sorry if you don't like this clear reality pointed out for other editors to be wary of. Cadiomals (talk) 06:37, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Why omit women? Why do you disagree, with Forbes of all sources, about the impacts of the retirement savings crisis? You were saying that you don't think editors should be warned about other editors' abuses, but somehow my persistence against someone trying to use non-peer reviewed sources which contradict the peer reviewed secondary sources to push his political point of view is wearing you out? If you don't want me to complain about such editing abuses, then why are you complaining about my attempt to present an accurate representation of the economy? In what universe would pointing out inaccurate POV pushing be better than making improvements? I simply do not understand your reasoning. EllenCT (talk) 12:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

This article is very large in scope, so if you want to include points about differences in wealth by race, wouldn't it be better to broaden it slightly? I think it's appropriate to point out that racial disparities, but focusing on women is missing part of the bigger point. There's a lot of literature out there on income and wealth gaps by race.Mattnad (talk) 17:31, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree, we need slightly more text on this. But there are some concern trolls pretending to want more accuracy but continuously resorting to attacks who are backing up the people willing to try to cherry pick from less reliable sources. EllenCT (talk) 03:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

When did I ever say I "don't think editors should be warned about other editors' abuses"? Please quote me directly on that, otherwise it's a fallacy. Your complaints about VictorD7 were inappropriate for this Talk page and I advised you to contact an admin or take it somewhere more appropriate instead, and you did, didn't you? And you ended up shooting yourself in the foot by exposing your own history of abuses. I also never said to omit women, I said to include the general population by race, men and women, which is more broad and neutral. I don't understand your reasoning either, because after being shot down repeatedly by consensus you keep coming back with the same kinds of suggestions, which have not been considered by the majority of editors to be improvements to this article. Most others would have taken the hint by now. If all you're going to do is build straw men and repeat your usual "arguments" I won't be replying to you anymore on this thread. Cadiomals (talk) 18:18, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

You personally and repeatedly removed my warnings about VictorD7's continual attempt to cherry pick non-peer reviewed sources against my peer reviewed WP:SECONDARY sources. If your complaints about how you don't have enough patience to deal with that are appropriate, then why weren't my original warnings? You are welcome to enumerate whatever "history of abuses" you think I have on my talk page, but otherwise you should remove or at least strike such personal attacks. Should you wish to actually discuss the topic at hand to try to improve the article, then please let me know why you think describing the plight of minorities in general would be better or worse than describing the plight of minority women. EllenCT (talk) 03:52, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

For the record, Ellen's claims about me and that topic are completely false, and were systematically debunked by me and other editors on the Talk Page she linked to earlier. Far from cherry-picking, I used every source available, including the ones she linked, to refute her position. Even those who share her politics don't agree with her. I would appreciate it if she stopped invoking my name in this ad hominem diversion from substance. VictorD7 (talk) 06:14, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

VictorD7 has still been unable to find a single peer-reviewed source agreeing with his newfound belief that corporations pass 0% of their taxes to their customers, and now he doesn't want his name associated with the fact that the several sources he did find saying so were all not peer reviewed. I will not shut up about this until an apology makes it to my talk page along with the answers to the 11 questions that VictorD7 still refuses to answer. EllenCT (talk) 06:33, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Please stop peddling falsehoods, Ellen, particularly off topic ones. ([12]) I won't hold my breath waiting for your apology, or for you to find a single source supporting your claims about "consumers". VictorD7 (talk) 08:39, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Replacing your savings segment with a sentence breaking down median income by race (not necessarily in the same place) might be acceptable (though it'd mean this article is really selective about the racial breakdowns it includes and omits), though it should be sourced by a relatively neutral reference like the Census. I oppose adding the gender breakdown. That's a partisan talking point and if we added a nominal breakdown we'd need to add contextual info like this study showing that the "wage gap" almost entirely disappears when variables like qualifications, hours worked, and children are controlled for. Bloating the article further with new point/counterpoint stuff would probably be going in the wrong direction. I certainly oppose convoluted, cherry-picked presentations of niche demographics. I'll also note that wealth is a shakier measurement than income (because it's harder to measure), and we'd need to verify your last source's claims anyway. It's from a liberal advocacy group that lobbies for racially discriminatory finance legislation in favor of "people of color" and is so unnotable that it apparently has no Wikipedia article. That my perusal of its website found most its links busted wasn't encouraging. VictorD7 (talk) 06:14, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I am interested in the opinions of those who do not use non-peer reviewed sources to try to push their political opinions into articles, and therefore I disregard VictorD7's opinions. EllenCT (talk) 06:33, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

So based on your logic I should disregard all your future proposals and opinions in the future streamlining of this article? It is ironic that you would accuse someone else of "trying to push their political opinions" when, unlike you, Victor has not proposed or wrongfully attempted any insertions of content for the past two months, while you have tried at every turn, forcing a number of RfC's that have all turned out against you. I would prefer non-tendentious editors who actually know what kind of content is appropriate for this summary article, so I ought to ignore and disregard Ellen's opinions, except that would be unfair and against Wikipedia's behavioral guidelines.

Also in response to your above reply, describing inequalities with minorities rather than just minority women would be infinitely better because it is inclusive, covers the topic more broadly and may actually be appropriate for this article, not to mention a mountain of well-known reliable sources already exist for such a subject, rather than the more obscure ones you've chosen to cherry-pick. Cadiomals (talk) 08:28, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

What is your specific proposal for improvement? EllenCT (talk) 02:59, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Teen declines in reading, math and science

PISA scores released today are very disappointing. U.S. 15 year-olds dropped from 25th to 31st internationally in math, 20th to 24th in science, and 11th to 21st in reading since 2009. How should the article reflect this? EllenCT (talk) 10:53, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Why should it? We have subsidiary articles for minutiae like this. I'm not aware (I could be wrong) of any other country article that touts how smart or dumb its students are. We don't need to include every possible thing about the U.S. in this. --Golbez (talk) 13:35, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's minutiae, I think it's central to the future economic and social viability of the nation. EllenCT (talk) 14:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

At the absolute most, I suppose the article could note the rankings as they are, and not make any note of the shift. That's how you could do it - simply say "According to one study, students in the U.S. rank 31st in math etc etc". No further commentary is needed unless it can be conclusively tied to a particular policy. --Golbez (talk) 16:27, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Hard to gauge comparisons. Many nations split student populations to study Algebra at age 14, tracking college bound for Algebra classes, and dropping those destined for trade school, whereas many U.S. states require Algebra for an unmodified high school diploma for all students, regardless of academic potential. Poor states are included in U.S. statistics, poor Chinese provinces in the west and north are not formally included in official "national" tallies. U.S. engineers used to score lower than British right out of college, then higher five years later because of the continuing education from an "education for life" work ethic to stay current in their field. I'd like to see something of academic scholarship in a controlled study, rather than merely reposting AP headlines. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:59, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

After the sentence in the Education section "The US spends more on education per student than any nation in the world" we could add "Despite this, American students tend to lag behind other OECD countries on international measures of mathematics, science and reading proficiency" and attach the sources. That is the absolute most I would be willing to support in mentioning this. International comparisons of educational achievements are already debatable topics, as TheVirginiaHistorian articulated. Cadiomals (talk) 01:43, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Here is a link to the report. I think we should mention how U.S. students rank internationally. However, I think that any commentary should be left to other articles. This is not a new story btw. Educational achievement in other countries has been improving since WW2 to the extent that they are catching up with or exceeding the U.S. TFD (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the replies above and ask that the recommended edit be made. EllenCT (talk) 10:13, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

The template asks for a complete and specific description. Please state the specific phrase you want added to the article. --Golbez (talk) 13:14, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Not done for now: Agreed - we need the exact text you want included, complete with references, and the exact text you want it replaced with. Please reactivate the {{edit protected}} template when you have an agreement on the exact wording to be used. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 01:13, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Golbez, why do you think the change in ranking is less noteworthy than the absolute rank? The absolute rank will change over time, but the drop from 11th to 21st in reading among OECD countries from 2009 to 2013 will remain true without needing to be updated to maintain accuracy. EllenCT (talk) 05:05, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Because it says nothing as to whether or not it was because the U.S. got worse, or the rest of the world simply got better. --Golbez (talk) 05:11, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. Which facts from [13] do you think are most appropriate to include? EllenCT (talk) 05:15, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

And to add to my previous comment, it also doesn't include the degree. Let's say the U.S. dropped ten spots, but the distance between the top and bottom of those ten spots was smaller than the distance to the next spot down. In other words, a very tiny improvement could cause a massive change in ranking. I'm not saying that's the case here; I'm saying, it's a potential interpretation without all the data, and we aren't going to give all the data here. --Golbez (talk) 05:20, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

"Which facts ... do you think are most appropriate to include?" – Read my response above. That is the absolute most I think is appropriate to add to the Education section. Also read Virginia's response. We cannot go too deeply into a single set of data by a single organization, especially since there are factors involved that make it debatable. Cadiomals (talk) 07:07, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I think we should state the basic facts. "According to ............. in 2012, U.S. 15 year-olds ranked 31st in math, 24th in science, etc. Somedifferentstuff (talk) 02:39, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Why mention just one stat from one organization when there are other organizations with similar stats? If we made a more general statement it could better encompass a broader range of sources. Besides, the stats the OECD came up with are already debatable given that methods, selection, and education systems vary amongst different countries. For example, the educational achievement in Shanghai is not representative of China as a whole, especially its less developed provinces which are not tested. Meanwhile, the US tests all students and gives free secondary education to all, while many countries require you be accepted to such schools. A more general statement could potentially allow us to provide more sources. Cadiomals (talk) 12:44, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose including the U.S. results as both relative and absolute scores, in that order, and also noting the changes in public school class sizes over the past several decades. Perhaps with a graph. EllenCT (talk) 01:24, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

1-2 sentences max on US international education rankings? Sure why not. I had already expressed my agreement with that. Noting changes in public school class sizes? A random detail with zero relevance to this article. Perhaps with a graph? Not enough room. Cadiomals (talk) 09:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Why do you call the change in class sizes random and irrelevant? EllenCT (talk) 03:08, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

And let's get the proposal wording here first for feedback before you actually add it to the article. VictorD7 (talk) 09:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Class size is key, the literature shows best at 1:15-18 in high school -- teacher to pupil in the classroom, excluding administrators, bus drivers and cafeteria staff. The richest prep schools with tuitions higher than private university could teach in amphitheaters or in classes of five, but they teach in classes of 15-18 for best results with the best students. Federal law caps special ed classes at 9-12. Class sizes are not random and irrelevant, they are key to understanding the context of the educational setting, -- an indicator of the seriousness with which a society takes the enterprise. Class size twice the recommended size would indicate a society only about half serious. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:41, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

That's all well and good, I agree that class size is important, and such info would do fine in Education in the United States, but the question continues to be whether it is a level of detail appropriate for this article alone. I actually took the time just now to visit the the Education sections of several good and featured country articles and found absolutely no details on class size within any of them. Surprisingly a few of those featured articles don't even have dedicated Education sections, which I found odd because I thought that would be one of the essential sections. See for yourself. As such I think it is safe to say that details on class size are simply not salient enough to merit inclusion in this article, though they are welcome in any article dedicated to US education. The continued clean-up and tightening of this article (which you have so far contributed greatly to) to conform to at least Good standards involves such judgment. Cadiomals (talk) 07:52, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Okay, concur, Education in the United States it should be. Ellen has mentioned before the importance of touching on major items important in American political campaigns today. Looking at other country articles could be an alternate guideline for including material. But then, looking at other republics such as France, the lede includes French citizen islanders apart from metropolitan France, with fundamental constitutional protections and representation in the National Assembly in the French national tradition . . . I'll wait. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:49, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

You are absolutely right about class sizes, which have far more to do with the economic viability of the nation than e.g. sports, which gets a huge section. If you were to include information about the increase from about 20 to 30 since the 50's, what would you say and which sources would you use? It is far better to make the improvement you know is best and then compromise from the moral high ground than capitulate to the demands of deletionists and whitewashers up front. EllenCT (talk) 22:37, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, we are trying to shorten the country article 'United States' within the general framework of other country articles. But I know you are right to emphasize class size as a key metric and I know it should be the subject of a sourced section at 'Education in the United States', maybe in the curriculum subsection. As it is now there is only one reference to class size discussing public v. private schools. That is the article most in need of augmentation on the class-size subject.

Unfortunately I've given away my educational library at retirement for the use of my colleagues and I miss institutional subscription base for research. But journal publications out of education departments at Harvard, UVA and William and Mary support class size data for high schools that I referred to over the past ten years. The numbers are replicated and without much variance. A librarian should be able to connect you to a source online with a current meta-data study. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 01:25, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I am well aware of the meta-analyses on the subject of the past decades. Sadly, it takes more than secondary peer reviewed sources to improve this article, it takes the resolve and confidence of those who would expose the truth in the face of politically motivated attempts by the rich to hide it from the poor who stand to benefit. EllenCT (talk) 03:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that’s why including “native-born American” islanders (U.S. Census, p.1, n.1) in the lede is important, --- it will not harm the domestic sugar cartel enabled by the Insular Cases one bit. We know by U.S. Code 28 U.S.C. § 3002, “State” in U.S. statutory law “means any of the several States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, or any territory or possession of the United States. And we know from the political science scholar Bartholomew Sparrow, the US has always had territories… “At present, the US includes the Caribbean and Pacific territories, [DC] and of course the fifty states.” (Levinson and Sparrow, 2005, p.232). But somehow WP cannot say, "The U.S. federal republic includes 50 states, DC and five populated territories.[n]" There are no counter-sources, but I must wait. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:13, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

50 States

I came to this page because I couldn't remember some of the New England States. This article does not have a list of all 50 States however. The closest existing thing is United_States#Geography.2C_climate.2C_and_environment. I propose to change/append that section to show all 50 States in an appended version of U.S._state#Map or U.S._state#List_of_states. Possible addition of regional groupings such as 'New England' and 'Bible Belt' to reflect differing attitudes in those areas. Another option would be a truncated version of Physiographic_Regions_of_the_United_States, as it might serve the same purpose to highlight regional differences. nachtkap 9:19, 14 January 2014(UTC)

Sorry but none of your suggestions are appropriate for this summary article. The United States article is supposed to give a broad overview of the different aspects of the nation without providing overly specific info such as a listing of all the states. However, the info you seek exists in main articles dedicated to those specific topics, many of which are linked in this article.

• For a listing of all US states, see U.S state or List of states and territories of the United States
• For info on the New England states, see the link.
• For info on the Bible Belt states, see the link.

Cadiomals (talk) 09:38, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

So an actual list of the 50 United States is inappropriate? Why exactly? EllenCT (talk) 03:01, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

It's already in there under United States#Political divisions, "Main articles: Political divisions of the United States, U.S. state, Territories of the United States, and List of states and territories of the United States". TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 08:55, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Because it unnecessarily takes up room. --Golbez (talk) 18:21, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree with TVH and Gbz' to a point. How about a collapsible box, just below the U.S. map, with the States listed in alphabetical order with the date of statehood for each, listed in two or three columns? Pages that are directly related should have a certain amount of contextual overlap where the very basic information is concerned.
In any case, is the term New England States an official group of states that e.g.falls under some distinguishing political grouping, or is it a figurative term that pertains to this original colonial area? In any case it would seem the section in question should at least mention it (I just added a link to the New England page) as we did have a reader coming to 'this' page to find out about that. Be nice if we could give him/her something more than a pat on the back with advice to go fishing some where else. The map on this page makes no such distinction -- this being 'the' U.S.A. page. -- Gwillhickers 16:39, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Nit-picking!

Can someone change the pertinent footnote to "Indeed, World War II ushered in the zenith of U.S. power (in relative terms) ...". In absolute terms, the Americans didn't, for example, yet have thermonukes in 1945. 86.176.100.80 (talk) 22:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Relative power is the only reasonable metric. I see no reason to specify. --Golbez (talk) 22:41, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

All power is relative, the phrase "(in relative terms)" is superfluous here. The U.S. reaches the zenith of its power relative to how it judges itself powerful in unused stocks of armament relative to other nations' stocks of unused weaponry. Using parentheses is generally a sign of bad encyclopedic style. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:42, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

It says "ushered in", it did not say its zenith was reached in 1945. Presumably it was reached sometime after. TFD (talk) 00:14, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

State/Statehood list

Upon further review, the U.S. page here makes no reference to statehood, other than to mention it in passing a couple of times. Apparently if a reader wanted to see an overview of statehood dates he/she would have to go to the individual state pages, one at a time, fifty of them, to gather that information. Seems this would be an appropriate place for a state/statehood list, again, in a collapsible box if room is an issue. There exists a list of states on a different page but it includes a lot of other additional information, (i.e. population, capital city, largest city, area in sq miles, etc etc) not appropriate for this page. Seem this page would do well with a simple list of states and statehood dates, as this is the United 'States' page. -- Gwillhickers 17:46, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and made a template containing a collapsible box with a list of states and statehood dates and placed it under the map of the USA. Seems to work there. Please let a few people comment first if anyone has the mind to take the axe to it. Hope it meets with everyone's approval. Thanx. -- Gwillhickers 19:26, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

It is possible to make the bar (and the box in general) narrower, preferably so it is similar to the width of the map above it? When you open the template there is a lot of space between the two columns so I don't think this would be impossible. Cadiomals (talk) 22:47, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

The bar/box automatically adjusts to the size of your window, so if you have a narrower window the bar will be shorter. I have a wide screen monitor, but when I'm viewing/editing Wikipedia I use a separate and narrower window because I don't like to turn my head back and forth when I'm reading. The states are listed with two columns instead of three so they won't crowd the window should it be a smaller width, esp on smaller computer screens like they have in public libraries. The map is a fixed size. The only way to make it larger or smaller is to adjust the px size or tweak your own settings. -- Gwillhickers 02:00, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Hey, Gwillhickers, you're a history guy. We've finally gotten around to redoing the History section, mostly streamlining but also addressing quality/accuracy concerns, and I think the process would benefit from your participation if you're interested. VictorD7 (talk) 00:29, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm sort of involved in other areas, but I'll drop in from time to time and offer my 2c to the talk page and perhaps make corrections to the article should the language start to become exaggerated, erroneous and/or take on the form of veiled hate speech, etc. -- Gwillhickers 19:42, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd appreciate it. VictorD7 (talk) 02:12, 25 January 2014 (UTC)