The Social Security Administration released some interesting information a few weeks ago (and corrected it after David Cay Johnston called attention to some anomalies in the data, which turned out to have resulted from false W-2's from two individuals; what's reported below is the corrected data) on 2009 wages.
First, here is a summarized table of the 150.9 million individual wage earners in 2009.
- 75% of wage earners earned $50,000 or under; 25% earned less than $10,000
- Nearly 94% of wage earners earned less than $100,000. (Is this how you pictured it?)
- The 6.3% of us who earned over $100,000 received over 30% of the wages.
- In total, 32% of wage earners deferred any wages; the deferrals equaled just 3.56% of aggregate wages.
| Net Compensation Interval |
Number of Wage Earners (1) |
Percent of Total Wage Earners (2) |
Cumulative Percent Wage Earners (3) |
Aggregate Wages (4) |
Percent of Aggregate Wages (5) |
Cumulative Percent Aggregate Wages (6) |
| $0 to $10,000 |
38,369,374 |
25.42% |
25.42% |
$152,896,917,802 |
2.59% |
2.59% |
| $10,000 to $30,000 |
44,608,322 | 29.56% |
54.98% |
$874,364,572,885 |
14.83% |
17.43% |
| $30,000 to $50,000 |
30,936,472 |
20.50% |
75.48% |
$1,208,601,910,795 |
20.51% |
37.93% |
| $50,000 to $100,000 |
27,553,085 |
18.26% |
93.74% |
$1,882,156,087,994 |
31.93% |
69.87% |
| $100,000 to $500,000 |
9,151,298 |
6.06% |
99.80% |
$1,445,445,607,843 |
24.52% |
94.39% |
| over $500,000 |
299,182 |
0.20% |
100.00% |
$330,569,524,083 |
5.61% |
100.00% |
| Total |
150,917,733 |
$5,894,034,621,403 |
||||
| memo: contributions to deferred compensation plans | 48,534,389 | 32.16% |
$209,685,825,910 average: $4,320 |
3.56% |
These data do not include funds received by hedge fund managers which most of us would consider wages, but which get treated as capital gains, and taxed at a much lower rate than do all but the lowest wages. It would be interesting and useful to see those data arranged next to these.
One might use these data to consider whether there should be a separate bracket for higher incomes. Keep in mind that these are individual wages, net only of 401(k) type deferrals of income, not adjusted gross income at the taxpayer/household level.
The next table examines the amount of wage income which is represented by the portion of wages over $100,000, just below the current level at which one stops paying social security withholding.
| Net Compensation Interval |
Number of Wage Earners |
Percent of Total Wage Earners |
Cumulative Percent Wage Earners |
Aggregate Wages over $100,000 |
Percent of Aggregate Wages |
Cumulative Percent Aggregate Wages |
| $100,000 to $500,000 |
9,151,298 |
6.06% |
6.06% |
$530,315,807,843 |
9.00% |
9.00% |
| over $500,000 |
299,182 |
0.20% |
6.26% |
$300,651,324,083 |
5.10% |
14.10% |
| total |
9,450,480 |
6.26% |
$830,967,131,927 |
|||
| 14.10/85.90 = 16.4% |
||||||
So how does all this relate to this blog's focus on Land Value Taxation?
The focus is on smart, just, efficient taxation -- and on ending the privileges which enrich some people and impoverish the vast majority of us.
Many of the ways that people "earn" large salaries are in large part the result of our permitting privileges: the privatization of the value of natural resources; the privatization of the value of urban land; and structures which permit some sectors of the economy to skim off value created by all of us. (Did anyone yell FIRE?)
We have to hold the feet of our elected representatives to the fire: make it worth their while NOT TO obey the requests of their huge campaign contributors and TO listen to the rest of us and reconfigure the structures which funnel wealth and income into the pockets of the currently-and-traditionally-privileged folks.
Are you ready?
I think there were some signs in this recent midterm election that voters in several states were not bowled over by the well-constructed advertising and heavy media buys of some very rich candidates for office, and I find that encouraging. Connecticut's Foley and McMahon, California's Fiorino and Whitman, and a number of entities enabled by the Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court spent large amounts of money, with very uneven results.
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