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Make Congress Earn Average American Wage. (europe.pub)
submitted 4 days ago by to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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[–] 15 points 4 days ago (5 children)

I get that you're trying to be accurate, and I respect that.

Let's use the mean, and eliminate the top and bottom 1% of earners. Which would put Congress' salary between 57,000 and 61,000

Using the median gives them a salary of 87,500 dollars.

That top 1% is a real motherfucker.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 days ago

    For the bottom 1%, I assume this includes the unemployed as making $0?

    And for the billionaire class, if we are talking AGI here (which I assume we are) I’m guessing they have some entirely normal AGI. If they are paying anything on their actual wealth it’s probably through some kind of capital gains tax, or hidden in some trust or shell corporation.

    So before eliminating top 1% and bottom 1%, we might want to clarify those items, as the “average” worker will mainly just have a non-zero AGI they are taxed on.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (2 children)

    Eliminating the top 1% of earners is a good policy I support, but I don't think it makes sense as a way to calculate averages.

    Though your proposal might work now, in the fullness of time things will change, and the 1% may not be the right number. I don't think you can rely on governments to update numbers promptly. There are places in England that have fines in law defined in denominations that no longer exist. You can't rely on governments keep things up to date.

    But your doesn't address the underlying problems with using the arethmetic mean. It seems like you're just searching for justification to pay people you don't like less.

    I believe everyone should be able to live comfortably, and well designed incentive systems are effective at shaping behavior. Median is better on both fronts.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago (1 child)

    It's designed to be uncomfortable until the lowest earners in the country are able to approach comfortability themselves. The whole point is to tie people who make decisions for the rest of us to the consequences of them. It's not about inflicting harm, it's about inflicting consequences, which may be good or bad.

    We want a rising tide.

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