Crime is not the only variable affecting the economy. I gave you another variable - paying people to not work.
> It's an interesting theory
It's a question for you. Which would you choose?
As for trends, there's been a decades long increasing trend of people leaving their jobs for one reason or another and getting on disability. Disability pays less than their jobs did, but it's a workable life. Their standard of living went down, but it wasn't because of rich people. It was because they found a friendly doctor who could get them on disability, and they wouldn't have to work anymore.
> Crime is not the only variable affecting the economy. I gave you another variable - paying people to not work.
It sounds like you're saying here that crime doesn't have a strong enough effect on inequality to really practically matter when compared to other factors. Is that what you're saying? That other factors are so much stronger that they're able to actually reverse the trend we would otherwise expect to see?
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If you're trying to find the actual reasons why inequality has gone up, we can overlay a lot of charts on top of inequality levels that will show correlations, from welfare participation to market deregulation to housing prices to even mobile phone usage.
People can debate which of those theories are correct. But all of them are more plausible than the idea that crime rates are strongly correlated with rising inequality. I have some issues with the "welfare queen" narratives that people bring out, but blaming welfare is at least pointing to two numbers that are going in the same direction.
So, sure, I will happily grant that it is more plausible that welfare levels influence inequality than it is to say that crime rates are driving inequality. I will take some minor quibbles with the fact that spikes in welfare/inequality don't seem to be correlated in convincing ways (again, we saw economic trends around 2019/2020 that didn't line up with when people were given financial aide during the pandemic, which should probably strike you as at least a little bit odd). But yes, at the very least you're now pointing at graphs that both have a positive slope.
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> It's a question for you. Which would you choose?
I would genuinely, honestly choose to work, I am interested in maximizing my earning potential for multiple reasons. I also have side/entrepreneurial stuff I do anyway for profit, so it's really not feasible for me to even consider taking welfare that would be conditional on me not having a job or earning any additional income. And the numbers you're talking about are too low for me to live comfortably, and only the working option gives me a clear path forward to changing that number.
I don't think that answer matters to you, and I don't understand why you care about it. Obviously you don't think the answer I give above about my own work preferences is representative of the average American person, so why did you ask the question if the answer didn't matter to your argument?
So, you don't think an extra EIGHT MILLION people choosing disability payments over working is a significant factor in inequality?
> so it's really not feasible for me to even consider taking welfare that would be conditional on me not having a job or earning any additional income
You can still be setting yourself up in business. It takes a while before a business generates income. You could also use the time to upgrade your job skills so you could re-enter the job market at a higher pay level.
But I do admire your honesty there. I expect a not insignificant number of people would take the check, and have another source of income off the books.
> So, you don't think an extra EIGHT MILLION people choosing disability payments over working is a significant factor in inequality?
Like I said:
> People can debate which of those theories are correct. But all of them are more plausible than the idea that crime rates are strongly correlated with rising inequality.
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> and have another source of income off the books.
:shrug: This seems like a lot of trouble to me personally; I don't like the idea of either not putting income into the bank or not reporting it on taxes. Audits are nasty :). Maybe I'm over-cautious on that front, I guess people do sometimes choose not to report income -- but since I'd like to make significantly more than those numbers, I suspect that's a solution that wouldn't really work for me long-term unless all of my side projects/ventures stayed very small. At most I'd need to only do it short term.
Again though, I don't think my own preferences or choices matter that much here, I think looking at overall data trends is better than looking at personal anecdotes. I don't think it's really relevant to the conversation what I would or wouldn't do.
Crime is not the only variable affecting the economy. I gave you another variable - paying people to not work.
> It's an interesting theory
It's a question for you. Which would you choose?
As for trends, there's been a decades long increasing trend of people leaving their jobs for one reason or another and getting on disability. Disability pays less than their jobs did, but it's a workable life. Their standard of living went down, but it wasn't because of rich people. It was because they found a friendly doctor who could get them on disability, and they wouldn't have to work anymore.
https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/di_asr/2016/sect01...
Do you think that a 5 fold increase in the number of workers on disability in the last 70 years might have contributed to inequality?