Why trickle down doesnt work

At the same time, white-collar workers generally fared better as they were more likely to maintain their jobs as they shifted to remote work.

Investors also benefited as the stock market rallied on hopes for an economic recovery — a development that doesn't help most low- and middle-class workers. Only about half the U.

Meanwhile, almost 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the start of the pandemic through November, according to new data released by the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame. Rebuilding the economy and household wealth for low- and middle-class families are among the issues facing President-elect Joe Biden after he's inaugurated next month.

Raising taxes on the rich and corporations could provide trillions of dollars in resources for helping the economic recovery, Zucman told CBS MoneyWatch. Please enter email address to continue. Please enter valid email address to continue.

Chrome Safari Continue. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today. Home Other Economics. April 2, Reading Time: 4 mins read. Image credits: Mathieu Stern. Get more science news like this Tags: economy trickle down economics. Share Tweet Share.

Mihai Andrei Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. All Rights Reserved. Stock markets have been hitting record highs. More initial public stock offerings have been launched this year than in over two decades. A wave of hi-tech IPOs has delivered gushers of money to Silicon Valley investors, founders and employees.

Yet at the same time, more than 20 million Americans are jobless, 8 million have fallen into poverty, 19 million are at risk of eviction and 26 million are going hungry.

The UK is already considering an emergency tax on wealth. The president-elect has rejected a wealth tax, but maybe he should be even more ambitious and seek to change economic thinking altogether. The practical alternative to trickle-down economics might be called build-up economics. The rich themselves would benefit from doing so, as would everyone else. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below.

The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them. That revenue helped fund massive investment in infrastructure, education, health and basic research — creating the largest and most productive middle class the world had ever seen. But starting in the s, America retreated from public investment.

The result is crumbling infrastructure, inadequate schools, wildly dysfunctional healthcare and public health systems and a shrinking core of basic research.