WSJ
21/3/2006
John Snow, Segr. Tesoro USA:
da metà 2003 crescita economica
4%,
disoccupazione scesa dal 6,3 al
4,8%
reddito reale procapite +8,2% dal
genn. 2001 a genn. 06,
ricchezza netta procapite
(patrimonio-debiti) +24% nominale
MA [USA: nuovi dati su aumento ineguaglianze
sociali.Dietro la media del pollo, aumentano gli stipendi
altissimi e i redditi da capitale, ristagnano o calano i salari degli strati
inferiori. Il tax cut ha favorito i ricchi –ndr]:
- “tendenza di lungo periodo alla differenziazione delle
retribuzioni” - con crescente divario tra stipendi elevati (manager, star) e
massa. - Rapporto retribuzione CEO (capo azienda)/salario medio:
- 1970 = 40 volte, oggi 300 volte (studio Carola
Frydman -Harvard University e Raven Saks – Federal Reserve). - Secondo Census Bureau reddito familiare mediano (+alto
del 50% delle famiglie, + basso dell’altro 50%) è diminuito del 3,6% tra
2000 e 2004. - Aumentati solo i redditi del 95° percentile (top 5%).
- Alan Krueger, economista del lavoro a Princeton:
2000-05 salari reali medi +3%, ma incremento minimo per salari bassi, massimo
per alti. - Indagine triennale Federal Reserve: ricchezza reale
media familiare 2001-04 +1,5% (+17% tra 1995 e 1998; +10% tra ’98 e 01). - Robert Gordon, economista Northwestern Univ.:
tendenza 35ennale all’aumento della quota di un piccolo gruppo di superstipendiati
sui redditi da lavoro, e all’aumento della quota dei redditi da capitale
rispetto a quelli di lavoro. - Tax Policy Center:
effetto tagli a tasse di Bush: +4,6% per i redditi del top 1%, +2,6% per il 20%
di redditi medi, +0,3% per il 20% inferiore…
Treasury Chief Says Many
Benefit From Expansion;
Some Data Show Otherwise
By GREG IP
March 20, 2006; Page A3
WASHINGTON — Confronting criticism of the
Bush administration’s economic record, Treasury Secretary John Snow said
the widening gap between high-paid and low-paid Americans reflects a labor
market efficiently rewarding more-productive people. But he insisted Americans
are still broadly sharing in the economic expansion.
"What’s been happening in the United
States for about 20 years is [a] long-term trend to differentiate
compensation," Mr. Snow said in an interview with The Wall Street
Journal last week. "Look at the Harvard economics faculty, look at doctors
over here at George Washington University…look at baseball players, look at
football players. We’ve moved into a star system for some reason which is
not fully understood. Across virtually all professions, there have been growing
gaps."
Mr. Snow said the same phenomenon explains
why compensation for corporate chief executive officers has climbed so sharply.
"In an aggregate sense, it reflects the marginal productivity of CEOs. Do
I trust the market for CEOs to work efficiently? Yes. Until we can find a
better way to compensate CEOs, I’m going to trust the marketplace."
Since the 1970s, CEO compensation has gone
from 40 times to more than 300 times the average worker’s salary, according to a study by Carola Frydman of Harvard University and
Raven Saks of the Federal Reserve.
Mr. Snow, a former CEO of CSX Corp. who holds
a doctorate in economics, said the administration intends to publicly
challenge perceptions that typical workers and families haven’t benefited much
from the economic expansion. The extent to which the expansion has been
broadly shared is "the new sort of battle line in the political arena,"
he said.
Economic output has increased at an
annualized pace of almost 4% since mid-2003, and the unemployment rate has
fallen to 4.8% from 6.3%. Despite that, polls show
more Americans think the economy is worsening than think it is improving.
Mr. Snow distributed a fact sheet that showed
after-tax income per person, adjusted for inflation, rose 8.2% from January
2001, when George W. Bush took office as president, through January 2006.
The sheet also showed that per-person net worth — total assets minus debt
— rose 24%, unadjusted for inflation, from early 2001 to the end of 2005.
"People have more money in their pocket" and in their bank accounts,
he said.
Mr. Snow’s case relies on averages,
which can be skewed by big gains among the wealthiest. Other data suggest the
typical family has seen little advance in income or net worth since Mr. Bush
took office. Census Bureau data show median family income
— half of families have income greater than the median, half have less — fell
3.6% from 2000 through 2004. Incomes for the poorest families fell even
further. The only group to gain was the family at the 95th percentile —
that is, richer than 95% of all families. Data for 2005 are unavailable.
Alan Krueger,
a labor economist at Princeton University who served in the Clinton
administration, cited Labor Department data that showed the real median wage
rose 3% from 2000 to 2005. Gains were smallest for the lowest-paid
workers and largest for the best-paid. "From the standpoint of the
work force, it’s been a very weak recovery," he said. Wage data don’t
incorporate the effects of taxes, investment income or government payments.
As for net worth, a triennial Federal
Reserve survey found that the net worth of the median family rose 1.5%,
after inflation, from 2001 through 2004. That is far less than the 17% increase
from 1995 to 1998 and the 10% increase from 1998 to 2001. The survey wasn’t
conducted in 2000 or 2005.
Robert Gordon,
an economist at Northwestern University, says the past few years represent the continuation
of a 35-year trend in which a growing share of all labor income goes to a small
group of "superstars: professional athletes, CEOs and top corporate
officers." On top of this trend, income on capital — such as interest,
dividends, rent and capital gains — has taken a growing share of national
income from labor, and it "goes mainly to a small slice of the population
at the very top."
Mr. Snow said inequality at "one
philosophical level…is troubling. It’s really a serious, far-reaching
question about how to organize the economic affairs of a great country. We as a
society have made two determinations. We’re going to let more productive people
have higher incomes and we’re going to tax them more" through a
progressive-tax system.
Mr. Snow argued the administration’s tax cuts have
made the tax code more progressive, because the rich now pay a larger share of
total individual taxes. Some scholars counter that the tax cuts still widened
the gap between the after-tax incomes of rich and poor Americans. The Tax
Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and Urban
Institute think tanks, estimates that after-tax incomes of the richest 1% of
taxpayers were 4.6% higher in 2005 than they would have been without the tax
cuts. Incomes of the middle 20% were 2.6% higher, and incomes of the bottom 20%
were 0.3% higher.