In her newest book, When Race Trumps Merit, Heather Mac Donald rejects the claim of “disparate impact analysis,” which posits, “any standard or behavioral norm which negatively and disproportionately affects Blacks is presumed to be a tool of white supremacy” and must therefore be eliminated.
“During the late 1920s, the living standard of American blue-collar workers was far higher than 100 years earlier. And yet almost none of the “progressive” ideas advocated by leftists had been put in place. There was no minimum wage, no federal unemployment compensation, no OSHA, and labor unions were fairly weak. In 1929, the federal government spent only a bit over 3% of GDP.”
Argument: the benefits of technological progress accrued to the elites (especially the Catholic church) and not to the masses. When conditions for the English working class did subsequently improve in the second half of the 19th century, it was due to the growing political power of the working class, as well as the growing importance of labor unions
The empirical literature tends to show that people are tolerant of highly unequal distributions of income. However, their tolerance is conditional on the perception that the distribution reflects merit, not privilege, and that social mobility is possible.
Source: https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2023-06/PA%20949_update-4.pdf
The world has seen dramatic, global human progress across a broad range of indicators in recent decades, but have those gains been widely shared? The Inequality of Human Progress Index (IHPI) measures material well‐being and seven additional metrics: lifespan, infant mortality, adequate nutrition, environmental safety, access to opportunity (as measured by education), access to information (as measured by internet access), and political freedom. Across all but two of those dimensions, the world has become more equal since 1990. Globalization and market liberalization over the past few decades have not only raised absolute living standards but also reduced overall inequality.
Three studies suggest the answer is yes. Not discussed is an obvious implication. Since we know that Medicaid does not improve health, it looks like there would be substantial social gain if we took money out of Medicaid and spent it instead on food stamps and cash welfare.
Can we have a safety net that provides relief to people who experience misfortune and need temporary help without creating a permanent class of dependents who face high financial penalties if they get a job and go to work or if they marry the other natural parent of their children?
I answer “yes” in this latest Forbes editorial.
When you put all our social programs together, low-income Americans face roughly 100% marginal tax rates. Earn an extra dollar, lose a dollar of benefits. It’s not that simple, of course, with multiple cliffs of infinite tax rates (earn an extra cent, lose a program entirely), and it depends on how many and which programs people sign up for. But the order of magnitude is right.
