Monday, September 30, 2019

To Help the Poor, Focus on Poverty Reduction Rather than Inequality--Dan Mitchell | International Liberty

Dan Mitchell | International Liberty
"To Help the Poor, Focus on Poverty Reduction Rather than Inequality
"Here’s a simple quiz to determine whether you should support a candidate like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren: Would you embrace a policy that increased income for poor Americans by 10 percent if it also happened to increase income for rich Americans by 15 percent?
Normal people automatically say yes. After all, they don’t resent rich people and they want lower-income people to enjoy better living standards.
Some of our left-leaning friends (including at the IMF!), however, are so fixated on inequality that they are willing to deprive the poor so long as higher-income people have even larger losses (Margaret Thatcher nailed them on this issue).
Let’s look at some analysis of this issue....
...Let’s close with a chart from Mark Perry showing that ever-greater numbers of Americans are climbing the income ladder.
P.S. This data from China is the most powerful and persuasive that I’ve seen on why growth matters far more than inequality...
Read all.

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