Thedude

Show me your refrences about how far the real dollar is worth today vs 20 yrs ago

Blackhawk

Real income per household member rose to $22,966 in 2003 from $16,420 in 1983 (in 2003 dollars)--a 40% gain.

http://www.cato.org/events/powerpoin...441_graph7.pdf

Here is the link to the Cato institute rebutle to the Pew article:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8274

Here is a good quote about this from the article:

"The Pew-Brookings paper claims we face "rapidly growing income inequality" because "the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that between 1979 and 2004, the real after-tax income of the poorest one-fifth of Americans rose by 9 percent, that of the richest one-fifth by 69 percent, and that of the top 1 percent by 176 percent."

What happened for several years after 1979 was dominated by horrific inflationary recessions from 1980 to 1982. From 1988 to 2004, by contrast, the CBO says the poorest one-fifth saw their share of after-tax income rise from 2.7 percent to 3.4 percent, while that of the top fifth fell from 59.3 percent to 57 percent and the share of the top 1 percent was unchanged, at 13.4 percent.

On the day of Mrs. Clinton's speech, Brookings Institution senior fellow Ron Haskins wrote about "The Rise of the Bottom Fifth" in The Washington Post. He noted that from 1991 to 2005, the real earnings among the bottom fifth of families with children increased "by 80 percent, compared with around 50 percent for the highest-income group and around 20 percent for each of the other three groups."

Trust me, I grew up in the 60's and 70's. I came from a poor family of 7 kids. We're far better off today than we were then. If there is a problem, it is the inability of people today to save. Too many "necessities".

Blackhawk

The above points out how careful you must be for taking at face value what you here in the media, especially NPR. For example, in addition to hearing "The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer", we often hear that there are 48,000,000 uninsured Americans, and we take this as the truth as we hear it on NPR,CBS, NBS, ABC and FOX ALL the time. So I went back and hunted down the question that was asked to get this number.
The question asked by the Current Population Survey (CPS), was not: "Are you currently without insurance."
The question asked WAS: "In the past 12 months ending two months ago, have you ever been without health insurance."
First, it was found that many answered this question incorrectly (people answered negative when they had health insurance through someone else).
Second, since we are talking about a long time from (12 months), many people who anwer this question correctly currently have insurance. It was found that this number is over stated by at least a factor of 2. So when you hear numbers thrown around on the TV and radio, don't just believe them. Find out where they came from.

LabDad

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

$16,420 in 1983 has the same buying power as $30,344 in 2003.

Looks like real income per household member in 2003 is only 76% of what it was 20 years earlier.

LJ-ABX

The real income figures are already adjusted for inflation--that's what the "real" part means. You have inflated the figure a second time.

sigtauenus

I've been thinking about this too. Haven't read the book, but have been working on a plan that would allow my estate to give each of my grandkids/great grandkids say $10,000 at birth to be invested. I haven't done the math as $10,000 50 years from now obviously is not what it is today, but take XX amount of dollars given to each child at birth, invested in the market for 60 years, and my estate has ensured that future generations of my family will at least be provided for their retirement. It would have to be structured in such a way as to allow the estate to grow enough between generations to provide that payout to each successive generation, adjusted for inflation, and continue on indefinitely.

sigtauenus

Yeah, and that obviously doesn't include people who have access to insurance but for whatever reason choose not to accept it, or those who are self insured.

vagabond

Please be sure to ask your lawyer about the Rule Against Perpetuity and if it applies in your case.

sigtauenus

Rule Against Perpetuity? Somebody actually came up with a rule against that? WTF? Social Security is going to be defunct, I have an idea that will keep my family forever off the dole, and its illegal? Wow, I guess I need to throw out this bowl of wheaties, they taste like #$%!.

I'm off to google the Rule Against Perpetuity...

vagabond

I was just giving you a bit of friendly advice. There is no need to be antagonistic and use four letter words. And I didn't make up that rule; it's been around for a very, very long time, and there's a reason for its existence. I am not saying your situation with your estate falls into its purview. I am merely suggesting you ask your lawyer because many do not understand the rule and draft incorrectly, which causes problems in the future.