INCOME GROWTH RATES

We first saw this fascinating graphic on The Rachael Maddow Show.  She held it up and said, “Democratic candidates no longer have to run on offering themselves as a choice between themselves and their opponent.  All they have to do now is hold up this graph and tell the voters that they have a choice between Democratic results and Republican results.”

The graph was prepared by Catherine Mulbrandon of Visualizing Economics.  She put the economic numbers, compiled by Princeton political scientist, Larry Bartels, into visual form for a Slate magazine article — United States of Inequality, by Timothy Noah.   And the result is compelling.

The numbers prove, and the graph demonstrates, that the country as a whole prospers more under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents.  AND, it shows clearly that under Republican presidents the wealthy benefit way out of proportion to the rest of our citizens;  AND, it’s also very easy to see that under Democrats, while everyone benefits more than they do under Republicans, the middle and lower income Americans benefit more than the wealthiest among us.

AGAIN, everyone prospers more under Democratic presidents, it’s just that the wealthy don’t benefit out of proportion — as under Republicans— as the middle and lower income earners.  Everyone wins.

Our conclusion is that when more money is put into the hands of the middle-class and the poor, they spend it.  When the concentration of our nation’s wealth is in the hands of the uber-rich — they save it.  When money is taken out of the economy it suffers.

The really odd thing about this situation is that if these conclusions are true, then the super-rich are really not only screwing the country — they’re screwing themselves.  And, at the same time — as first mentioned in our post on September 4, WHERE’S THE MIDDLE-CLASS? — they’re creating a country that they won’t even want to live in.

It looks like the US grew more unequal under Republicans.  Income growth was much bigger under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.  And, that very FACT tells us that greater Income Equality coexists very nicely with higher levels of prosperity.  Some economists, like Les Leopold who blogs at Huffington Post, believe that greater equality even helps to create greater prosperity.

This could all be remedied if the American people would look at the FACTS (see below!) and stop listening to right-wing ideologues at Fox News.