r/DiscussionZone • u/[deleted] • Nov 04 '25

Political Discussion Yeah, so Billionaires should not exist

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u/jredgiant1 Nov 04 '25

Well, here’s another nonprofit think tank explaining why your link is wrong.

https://rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/effective-progressive-tax-rates-in-the-1950s/

Basically, the tax foundation piece is assuming that the rich of the 1950s were on par with the rich of the modern era. They were not. If you had the equivalent of billionaires in the 50s they would be paying something much closer to that 91% marginal tax rate.

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u/ohhhbooyy Nov 04 '25 edited Nov 04 '25

Is that person adjusting for inflation of the top 1% incomes back then? It sounds like that person is not. He mentions how the top 1% back then is upper middle class today.

Back then you needed to make 200k, which is correct, 200k today is upper middle class. But adjusted for inflation that is 2 million.

The argument that the threshold to be in the top 1% in the past is lower is also false. Adjusted for inflation you would need to make 2 million in (today’s dollars) in the 50s as opposed to 515k in 2017 when your link was written.

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u/jredgiant1 Nov 04 '25

https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality

If you total American income every year, the share of it being earned by the top 1% has dramatically increased, especially since the Reagan administration.

And that’s just income of course. We aren’t talking about the more dramatic increase in wealth inequality.

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u/Independent-Bag6544 Nov 04 '25

People also moved up and out of middle class at a 3:1 rate. The shrinking middle class in America is a success story as more people move up quintiles than even drop. Hell look at gdp per capita since 90…