Welfare State

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat May 11 12:44:25 PDT 2002


Nathan Newman wrote:


>In that sense, our tax plus welfare system at the federal level may be more
>progressive than European welfare states that depend much more heavily on
>payroll and VAT sales taxes that fall much more heavily on working families.

Uh, Nathan, you should really read some of the Smeeding/Rainwater stuff. Max posted some links here the other day, but in case you missed 'em, here they are again:

<http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/faculty/smeeding/papers/livingstandards.pdf>

<http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/faculty/smeeding/papers/irpconf.pdf>

"At the federal level" is pretty cute, considering that state and local government taxes and benefits play a big role in post-fisc U.S. income distribution. Also, progressive taxes have a smaller effect on distribution than spending.

Doug



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