Federal Reserve: These states are stealing from the poor

[Judi Lynn]

Federal Reserve: These states are stealing from the poor
By John-Henry Perera | May 26, 2015 | Updated: May 27, 2015 6:01pm

A team of researchers at the Federal Reserve are pointing fingers at more than a handful of states they say are actively undermining the government's attempts to curb income inequality.

According to a new paper, the federal tax code works to compress income inequality across the U.S., a problem that has been growing since 1980. The general idea is that high earners should be taxed at higher rates, allowing a good portion of that revenue to go into programs that help lower-income people.

In contrast, some states have instituted "regressive" tax policies that offset federal taxes and widen the growing gap between the haves and have-nots.

"The overall progressive structure of federal taxes tends to mitigate income inequality across households to a substantial extent in all U.S. states," the paper reads. "However, we find that state-levied taxes, on average, work to exacerbate income inequality."

More:
http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Federal-Reserve-These-states-are-stealing-from-6287561.php

[JDPriestly]

1. K&R. The usual suspects. Be sure to go to the actual article that is linked to in the article

linked to above. In other words the researched scholarly article is available at a link on the above website and it is worthwhile to at least glance at it.