On 25 Jan 2001 11:55:54 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (dennis roberts) wrote:
> but this fails to take into account (amongst other things) ... that the way
> rich and poor tend to get increments to their salaries/earnings (as a
> general rule) ... is due to some kind of a multiplicative constant ... that
> is ... some % value is that amount that increments their salaries ...
< snip, other stuff based on this misreading >
And Dennis quotes the material --
> At 05:07 PM 1/25/01 +0000, wrote:
> >Avid regression-to-the-mean watchers may be interested to know that,
> >according to yesterday's summary of the growing rich-poor divide
> >(on teletext news), the current top 10% of earners have had
> >a higher percentage increase in income over the past x years
> >(for some x that I've forgotten) than have the lowest 10% of earners.
> >
> > -- Ewart Shaw
A "higher percentage increase" sure sounds to me like
the kind of "multiplicative constant" that Dennis asks for.
Actually, in the U.S., wages/earnings are notorious for having
stagnated for the last 20 years, for the bottom 50% or so. Part of
the ambiguity of this sort of survey is the definition (and
ascertainment) of wages/earnings, with or without stock dividends and
capital gains, with or without adding on SS or other government
benefits, or subtracting off taxes. And for the "bottom 10%", there
is the question of who to include. If it is 'wage-earners', what set
of part-time/full-time workers?
And in the U.S., earnings for the top 1% have increased, and
escaped from taxation so much, that the U.S. lately has reportedly
attained the highest concentration of wealth among the major nations.
One set of numbers said, Top 1% had less than 20% of wealth in 1980,
and Top 1% has more than 40% today. Now, THAT figuring is, in part, a
function of inflated stock prices.
There several questions to ask about the news report.
An interpretation may be dubious for a several reasons, but
regression-to-the-mean does not seem to be one of them.
--
Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
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