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Proof That Trickle Down Doesn’t Work
Some people think there’s still a debate about whether trickle down economics is a viable model.
For those not familiar, it basically goes like this:
Reduce taxes on the rich
They make more money
They are therefore able to create more jobs
The economy grows
The middle class benefits
Sounds good.
The opposing camp believes this doesn’t work in practice. They think that the middle class is the real engine in our economy. They think it works like this:
Reduce taxes on the rich
They have more money
The middle class is taxed more, and has less
The middle class spends less money, because they have less
The economy stumbles
The middle class suffers
Data to the rescue
People have different views of this based on their personal experiences. I think one thing, and the guy next door thinks another. Maybe we took different classes in university, or maybe our parents taught us different things.
But it should be pretty easy to illustrate this over time, shouldn’t it? Couldn’t we just look to see the health of the economy relative to how much the rich have?
Shouldn’t we see quite obviously that when the rich get more money, the number of jobs go up and the economy gets better? That’s the actual theory.
Turns out we’re in luck: there are all sorts of data on this, and it’s not really up for debate. Here’s what it says.
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That’s what’s actually happening.
The rich are getting far more rich, and the middle isn’t getting much of anything. Those are the facts. There are a thousand charts showing the exact same phenomenon. Feel free to look it up for yourself.
Conclusions
I’m not an economist, so I can’t talk through all the variables here. And you should take caution when getting your economic analysis from a computer security specialist.
But as a layperson, on the outside, it seems to me like the data show that the one thing trickle down economics claims—that when the rich get richer the country does better—is conclusively false.
Our country is not doing better. The middle class is not doing better. But the rich have more money than ever. Think about that the next time someone tries to tell you that the rich create jobs and prosperity.
They don’t.
If they did, the economy would be thriving.