More Pretty Charts?

First, thanks for all of your emails.  I received a ton of emails about the video in last week’s blog.  I read all of the emails.  I don’t have the chance to respond to most (unfortunately).

Today, I want to show you three more interesting charts from the “Citizen’s Guide to the 2012 Financial Report of the United States Government”.

1. The Ugly Demographics

This chart shows the retirement of the baby boomers.  Social Security is really set up as a “pay-as-you-go” system.  Current workers pay for current retirees.  This works well when a lot of people are working and not many people are retired.  When the situation is reversed (not many people working and a lot of people retired), it doesn’t work out as well.

In this chart, you see the increase in the number of Social Security beneficiaries per 100 workers (who will be working and contributing to pay for those retirees).  Before you send me your ugly emails, remember…you really haven’t been paying for “your” Social Security.  We’ve been paying for the Social Security of people who are already retired.  Our kids will (hopefully?) be paying for “our” Social Security.  See chart below.

2. Our Tax Revenue

This is just a reminder that the vast majority of our tax revenue comes from income taxes plus payroll taxes.  We spend so much time arguing about (and avoiding) corporate taxation.  Yet, as a source of revenue, it’s relatively small.  See chart below.

3.  Is Corporate Taxation Progressive?

I thought that this was a really interesting chart.  The largest companies (ranked by assets) pay less in taxes as a percentage of their income (when compared to smaller companies).  See chart below.

Have a great weekend.

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