Sunday, January 22, 2012

Income and Income

I made this argument here several times as you will see when you look at my articles about the wage gap, and the spending power of women. Here is the economic connection:

Why do we care about the wage gap? B/c its a proxy of wealth? Any economist will tell you that income can be measured as good and serviced produced OR as goods and services consumed. Maybe we chose to examine the gender wealth gap in production terms b/c its simply convenient and objectively measured (ie payroll), but I can’t help but think that we don’t discuss wealth in consumption terms b/c feminists would really rather not explore a dimension of the gender binary that would very probably find a female privilege.

Attention, I am not an economist, and certainly do not wish to become one. But did do some digging around:

National income is the amount of goods and services produced in a country over a year, measrued in terms of money. It is the sum total of wages, rents, interests and profits received annually by the citizens of a country. It can also mean the rewards paid to the four factors of production -- land, labour, capital and organization -- over a year for their cooperation in producing goods and services consumed by the people of the country. - Business Environment - A.C. Fernando

He does not seem to be far off. I am not sure if that is only about the national level, but the points still stands. I believe if we look at a gap in terms of spending power, there will be a gap in the other direction.



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