Tag: income inequality
-
Saving 20% of your income is a luxury sold as a virtue
The 20% savings rule treats high savings rates as a moral choice, but for most Americans it’s a function of income, not discipline. The honest math.
-
Financial literacy won’t save everyone
Financial literacy is necessary but insufficient. Here’s why teaching budgeting won’t fix outcomes shaped by wages, costs, and structural forces.
-
Long-term capital gains should be taxed as ordinary income, full stop
Taxing investment income at lower rates than wages distorts the economy, widens inequality, and rests on weaker evidence than its defenders claim.
-
You don’t have a spending problem, you have an income problem
Personal finance gurus love blaming lattes, but for most working Americans the real squeeze is wages that haven’t kept up with the actual cost of living.
-
Capital gains rates are the reason inequality keeps widening
Wages get taxed at full rates while investment income gets a discount. The capital gains gap explains more about wealth concentration than most policy debates admit.
-
The 6-month emergency fund is overkill for high earners and impossible for low ones
The standard emergency fund advice ignores income reality. High earners can self-insure faster; low earners need a different playbook entirely.
-
Audits target the poor more than the rich, and the IRS knows it
Low-income filers face higher audit rates than millionaires. The reason isn’t fraud frequency — it’s that auditing the rich is harder and slower.