andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2011 andrew_gelman_stats-2011-673 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Catherine Rampell highlights this stunning Gallup Poll result: 6 percent of Americans in households earning over $250,000 a year think their taxes are “too low.” Of that same group, 26 percent said their taxes were “about right,” and a whopping 67 percent said their taxes were “too high.” OK, fine. Most people don’t like taxes. No surprise there. But get this next part: And yet when this same group of high earners was asked whether “upper-income people” paid their fair share in taxes, 30 percent said “upper-income people” paid too little, 30 percent said it was a “fair share,” and 38 percent said it was too much. 30 percent of these upper-income people say that upper-income people pay too little, but only 6 percent say that they personally pay too little. 38% say that upper-income people pay too much, but 67% say they personally pay too much. Rampell attributes this to people’s ignorance about population statistics–these 250K+ families just don’t realize t
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1 Catherine Rampell highlights this stunning Gallup Poll result: 6 percent of Americans in households earning over $250,000 a year think their taxes are “too low. [sent-1, score-0.796]
2 ” Of that same group, 26 percent said their taxes were “about right,” and a whopping 67 percent said their taxes were “too high. [sent-2, score-1.486]
3 But get this next part: And yet when this same group of high earners was asked whether “upper-income people” paid their fair share in taxes, 30 percent said “upper-income people” paid too little, 30 percent said it was a “fair share,” and 38 percent said it was too much. [sent-6, score-1.797]
4 30 percent of these upper-income people say that upper-income people pay too little, but only 6 percent say that they personally pay too little. [sent-7, score-1.509]
5 38% say that upper-income people pay too much, but 67% say they personally pay too much. [sent-8, score-0.728]
6 Rampell attributes this to people’s ignorance about population statistics–these 250K+ families just don’t realize that they’re “upper income. [sent-9, score-0.205]
7 ” Another possible explanation is that most upper-income people feel that other upper-income people should pay more–perhaps these surveys have an idea that they don’t cheat on their taxes but lots of others in their income bracket too. [sent-10, score-1.033]
8 I think Rampell’s explanation is correct, though. [sent-11, score-0.084]
9 ” They similarly way overestimated the percentage of Hispanics and Asians in the country. [sent-13, score-0.189]
10 Whites overestimated the proportion of minorities, and minorities overestimated the proportion of minorities too. [sent-14, score-0.886]
11 Given that people haven’t even learned these simple percentages, it’s not shocking that they can’t come to grips with something more complicated such as an income distribution. [sent-15, score-0.346]
12 As a statistician, I’m upset when people are so clueless about numbers that affect them personally, but as a social scientist, I recognize that this is just the way things are. [sent-16, score-0.203]
13 Some of Rampell’s commenters said that they made about $250,000 but didn’t feel that they were rich because they lived in expensive places like New York City. [sent-20, score-0.522]
14 the median household income in Manhattan in 2009 was $68000. [sent-24, score-0.139]
15 It may very well be true that Rampell’s commenters aren’t rich–but they are definitely “upper income,” which is what the survey asked. [sent-25, score-0.192]
16 The headline to Rampell’s article used the word “rich” which I’ve changed to “upper-income” to be more consistent with the survey question. [sent-26, score-0.249]
17 Also, the word “rich” seemed to freak out many of her commenters who started going off on rants without seeming to grasp her key point. [sent-27, score-0.388]
18 To put it another way, if you and your spouse make $125,000 each and you don’t feel rich, than that’s fine. [sent-28, score-0.139]
19 This discussion also relates in some convoluted way to my point #6 here . [sent-35, score-0.078]
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Introduction: Catherine Rampell highlights this stunning Gallup Poll result: 6 percent of Americans in households earning over $250,000 a year think their taxes are “too low.” Of that same group, 26 percent said their taxes were “about right,” and a whopping 67 percent said their taxes were “too high.” OK, fine. Most people don’t like taxes. No surprise there. But get this next part: And yet when this same group of high earners was asked whether “upper-income people” paid their fair share in taxes, 30 percent said “upper-income people” paid too little, 30 percent said it was a “fair share,” and 38 percent said it was too much. 30 percent of these upper-income people say that upper-income people pay too little, but only 6 percent say that they personally pay too little. 38% say that upper-income people pay too much, but 67% say they personally pay too much. Rampell attributes this to people’s ignorance about population statistics–these 250K+ families just don’t realize t
Introduction: From my New York Times blog today, here’s an example of how contemporaneous poll results can be given exactly opposite interpretations. Recently in the New Republic, William Galston shared some recent findings from Gallup: Respondents were asked to categorize three economic objectives as extremely important, very important, somewhat important, or not important. Here’s what they said: Extremely/very important Somewhat/not important Grow and expand the economy 82 18 Increase equality of opportunity for people to get ahead 70 30 Reduce the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor 46 54 When Gallup asked a sample of Americans in 1998 whether the gap between the rich and the poor was a problem that needed t
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Introduction: My sometime coauthor Aaron Edlin cowrote (with Ian Ayres) an op-ed recommending a clever approach to taxing the rich. In their article they employ a charming bit of economics jargon, using the word “earn” to mean “how much money you make.” They “propose an automatic extra tax on the income of the top 1 percent of earners.” I assume their tax would apply to unearned income as well, but they (or their editor at the Times) are just so used to describing income as “earnings” that they just threw that in. Funny. Also, there’s a part of the article that doesn’t make sense to me. Ayres and Edlin first describe the level of inequality: In 1980 the average 1-percenter made 12.5 times the median income, but in 2006 (the latest year for which data is available) the average income of our richest 1 percent was a whopping 36 times greater than that of the median household. Then they lay out their solution: Enough is enough. . . . we propose an automatic extra tax on the income
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Introduction: Sharon Otterman reports : When report card grades were released in the fall for the city’s 455 high schools, the highest score went to a small school in a down-and-out section of the Bronx . . . A stunning 94 percent of its seniors graduated, more than 30 points above the citywide average. . . . “When I interviewed for the school,” said Sam Buchbinder, a history teacher, “it was made very clear: this is a school that doesn’t believe in anyone failing.” That statement was not just an exhortation to excellence. It was school policy. By order of the principal, codified in the school’s teacher handbook, all teachers should grade their classes in the same way: 30 percent of students should earn a grade in the A range, 40 percent B’s, 25 percent C’s, and no more than 5 percent D’s. As long as they show up, they should not fail. Hey, that sounds like Harvard and Columbia^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H various selective northeastern colleges I’ve known. Of course, we^H^H
Introduction: Charles Murray wrote a much-discussed new book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.” David Frum quotes Murray as writing, in an echo of now-forgotten TV personality Tucker Carlson , that the top 5% of incomes “tends to be liberal—right? There’s no getting around it. Every way of answering this question produces a yes.” [I’ve interjected a “perhaps” into the title of this blog post to indicate that I don’t have the exact Murray quote here so I’m relying on David Frum’s interpretation.] Frum does me the favor of citing Red State Blue State as evidence, and I’d like to back this up with some graphs. Frum writes: Say “top 5%” to Murray, and his imagination conjures up everything he dislikes: coastal liberals listening to NPR in their Lexus hybrid SUVs. He sees that image so intensely that no mere number can force him to remember that the top 5% also includes the evangelical Christian assistant coach of a state university football team. . . . To put it i
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Introduction: Catherine Rampell highlights this stunning Gallup Poll result: 6 percent of Americans in households earning over $250,000 a year think their taxes are “too low.” Of that same group, 26 percent said their taxes were “about right,” and a whopping 67 percent said their taxes were “too high.” OK, fine. Most people don’t like taxes. No surprise there. But get this next part: And yet when this same group of high earners was asked whether “upper-income people” paid their fair share in taxes, 30 percent said “upper-income people” paid too little, 30 percent said it was a “fair share,” and 38 percent said it was too much. 30 percent of these upper-income people say that upper-income people pay too little, but only 6 percent say that they personally pay too little. 38% say that upper-income people pay too much, but 67% say they personally pay too much. Rampell attributes this to people’s ignorance about population statistics–these 250K+ families just don’t realize t
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Introduction: Reihan Salam discusses a theory of Tyler Cowen regarding “threshold earners,” a sort of upscale version of a slacker. Here’s Cowen : A threshold earner is someone who seeks to earn a certain amount of money and no more. If wages go up, that person will respond by seeking less work or by working less hard or less often. That person simply wants to “get by” in terms of absolute earning power in order to experience other gains in the form of leisure. Salam continues: This clearly reflects the pattern of wage dispersion among my friends, particularly those who attended elite secondary schools and colleges and universities. I [Salam] know many “threshold earners,” including both high and low earners who could earn much more if they chose to make the necessary sacrifices. But they are satisficers. OK, fine so far. But then the claim is made that “threshold earning” behavior increases income inequality. In Cowen’s words: The funny thing is this: For years, many cultural c
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Introduction: Ring Lardner, Jr.: [In 1936] I was already settled in Southern California, and it may have been that first exercise of the franchise that triggered the FBI surveillance of me that would last for decades. I had assumed, of course, that I was enjoying the vaunted American privilege of the secret ballot. On a wall outside my polling place on Wilshire Boulevard, however, was a compilation of the district’s registered voters: Democrats, a long list of names; Republicans, a somewhat lesser number; and “Declines to State,” one, “Ring W. Lardner, Jr.” The day after the election, alongside those lists were published the results: Roosevelt, so many; Landon, so many; Browder, one.
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