Friday, November 06, 2009

Marginal Tax Rates

From this article by Robert Barro and Charles Redlick. The x-axis represents time, starting around 1910. The y-axis is % of income.



(HT Greg Mankiw)

1 comment:

thinking said...

Just a few cursory observations:

1) Obviously taxes in the post-WWII era have been far higher than before. It costs money to be a military superpower as well as finance larger domestic programs.

2) In spite of higher taxes in the post war era, we have prospered and are better off than ever before.

3) Tax cuts sometimes work, but sometimes not so much. The Bush tax cuts were failures in terms of stimulating the economy, yet added enormously to the deficit.