3 Comments

Steve:

Nicely detailed Steve. It explains why you chose the 20th percentile rather than (lets say) the top 5 or 10%. As I tried to show using varying sources, just a reduction in trump's tax break for the upper 20% would result in an ~ $200 billion annually. My numbers were crudely acquired.

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Yeah the measures below the top 10% based on wealth percentiles are very gross, give little granularity to the picture of the bottom 90%. (While giving very fine slices of the top 1%, which is also important.) PSZ also give their *income-percentile* #s only for bottom 50/next 40. Happily the DFAs, CEX, and new (!!) Distribution of Personal Income accounts provide quintiles and/or deciles (by income), from top to bottom.

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Steve :

It all points in a direction. You could retax the 20% and pay for the 80% take.

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