Chart of the Day: Redistribution Around the World

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Via Reihan Salam, here’s an interesting, if limited bit of raw data. For each of the richest countries in the world it shows cash benefits (top white bar) and taxes (bottom dark blue bar) for the bottom 20% of the working-age population. Both are scaled to income. In the United States, for example, cash benefits on average amount to about 35% of market income, while taxes amount to about 11% of income. The red triangles show the net amount of cash transfer. In the United States, it averages about 24% of market income.

This doesn’t include non-cash benefits such as health insurance, so it doesn’t tell the whole story. But what the study does tell us is that over the past 30 years (a) income inequality has been rising nearly everywhere, while (b) cash benefits to the non-elderly have been declining almost everywhere. In the United States, those benefits amount to roughly 2% of GDP. That’s pretty stingy. The full study is here.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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