Income Inequality

Two primary principles:

1. There is no data that represents reality
2. The floor matters more than the ceiling

Data Distortion

The current data (from the us government) does not factor in variables that impact the reality of ones income - such as the governments' own impact to income. This means both reductions (ex: taxes) and additions (ex: government assistance) are not included removed.

The amount of inequality is therefore impossible to know, since no variables (such as programs meant to prevent inequality) are reflected.

Below are examples that show how useless the data is.

Example:

Nick makes 100K and pays 80% in taxes. Nick has 20K in their bank.
Tyler makes 20K and pays 0% in taxes. Tyler has 20K in their bank.

Despite perfect equality existing, people could point to the data and yell "INEQUALITY" since it shows Nick is making 5X Tyler.

Example 2:

Nick makes 100K at work, pays 80% in taxes, receives 0 dollars from the gov. Nick has 20K in their bank.
Tyler makes 20K at work, pays 0% in taxes, receives 5k dollars from the gov. Tyler has 25K in their bank.

Despite the working class having more money than top earners, the data would show the top earners making 5x workers.

Data doesn't actually matter

A hypothetical expresses this nicely in my mind: if there is a button that can instantly double the value of everything that all people have (literally all aspects of life are twice as good), then pressing it would instantly cause extreme growth of inequality. Would the poor be better off? Absolutely. Would inequality be worse? Yes.

Here we demonstrate that inequality doesn't matter. What matters - truly matters - is how high the floor is!
Focus on the growth of the bottom 10%, not the top 10%.