Today I’m starting a new category of posts called “Loose Threads.” These are a sort of “clipping file” of groups of links that I see as being related in some important way but have not gotten around to writing a full-fledged post about.
Although my thoughts are not fully articulated in a tidy, “post-worthy,” “publicly consumable” way, I nonetheless am thinking I will find value in posting such groupings of links/quotes, and hope you will find value in them too.
Some of my “Loose Threads” compilations may end up evolving into full-fledged posts as well.
Welcome to my first “Loose Threads” post, suggesting possible interconnections between income, growing income disparity, carbon footprint.
• Wages of Top 1% Keep Soaring (Paul Davidson, USA Today; published in Daytona Beach News-Journal): “The rich aren’t just getting richer. They’re getting there faster than the rest of America’s workers. During the last economic expansion, from 2009 to 2019, average yearly wages for the bottom 90% of workers rose 8.7% … Meanwhile, pay for most of the top 10% rose 13.2% – while earnings for the top 1% jumped 20.4%. … From 1979 to 2019, average pay increased 26% for the bottom 90%, 64.1% for most of the top 10%, 160.3% for the top 1%, and 345.2% for the top 0.1% …”
• From Bill McKibben, “Climate Forward” Newsletter (an email newsletter of The New Yorker magazine): “People caused the climate crisis, of course, but the definition of which people gets more precise over time. Research indicates that the wealthiest ten per cent of the world’s population—those with net incomes above thirty-eight thousand dollars a year—account for more than half of all carbon emissions.”
• Paris Climate Pact Shows Progress (Seth Borenstein and Frank Jordans, Associated Press; published in Daytona Beach News-Journal): “‘Globally the top 1% of income earners emit more than twice the combined share of the poorest 50% of the global population,’ said U.N. Environment Programme policy and planning chief Ann Olhoff. For the world to reach the most stringent Paris goal, she said, ‘the richest 1%’ would need to cut their emissions to one-thirtieth of what they are now.”
• Income Percentile Calculator for the United States in 2020. Find out where you stand.
• Are You in the World’s Top 1%? (Daniel Kurt, Investopedia). Eye-opening article about income inequality. In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement began an organized effort—primarily through protests and other acts of civil disobedience—to spotlight the impact of increasing income inequality and overall economic inequality in the U.S. and around the globe.” FYI the U.S. top 1% = 488k annual income as of 2019. BTW I read somewhere else (can’t remember where) that an income of just 38k puts a person in the top 10% globally.
• Inequality: Where We Stand Today (UN report)
• And a previous post on this blog, Calculating Your Income Percentile.