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Daily Archives: June 23, 2016

Income inequality in the U.S. by state, metropolitan area, and county

Income inequality in the U.S. by state, metropolitan area, and county – Report By Estelle Sommeiller, Mark Price, and Ellis Wazeter, June 16, 2016. Economic Policy Institute.

What this report finds: Income inequality has risen in every state since the 1970s and in many states is up in the post–Great Recession era. In 24 states, the top 1 percent captured at least half of all income growth between 2009 and 2013, and in 15 of those states, the top 1 percent captured all income growth. In another 10 states, top 1 percent incomes grew in the double digits, while bottom 99 percent incomes fell. For the United States overall, the top 1 percent captured 85.1 percent of total income growth between 2009 and 2013. In 2013 the top 1 percent of families nationally made 25.3 times as much as the bottom 99 percent.

Why it matters: Rising inequality is not just a story of those in the financial sector in the greater New York City metropolitan area reaping outsized rewards from speculation in financial markets. While New York and Connecticut are the most unequal states (as measured by the ratio of top 1 percent to bottom 99 percent income in 2013), nine states, 54 metropolitan areas, and 165 counties have gaps wider than the national gap. In fact, the unequal income growth since the late 1970s has pushed the top 1 percent’s share of all income above 24 percent (the 1928 national peak share) in five states, 22 metro areas, and 75 counties.”

Federal Court: The Fourth Amendment Does Not Protect Your Home Computer

Via EFF, Mark Rumold: “In a dangerously flawed decision unsealed today, a federal district court in Virginia ruled that a criminal defendant has no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in his personal computer, located inside his home. According to the court, the federal government does not need a warrant to hack into an individual’s computer. This… Continue Reading

Detect, Disrupt, Deter: A Whole-of-Government Approach to National Security Cyber Threats

Detect, Disrupt, Deter: A Whole-of-Government Approach to National Security Cyber Threats – by John P. Carlin, Harvard Law School National Security Journal. Volume 7, Issue 2: “With increasing network intrusions affecting the U.S. government and American companies, and unsecured connectivity creating new vulnerabilities to cyber attacks, the United States is implementing a whole-of-government, all-tools approach to… Continue Reading

Paper – A More Timely House Price Index

Anenberg, Elliot and Laufer, Steven, A More Timely House Price Index (June 15, 2016). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2555765 “Using listings data, we construct a new repeat-sales house price index that describes house values at the contract date when the price is determined rather than the closing date when the property is transferred. We… Continue Reading

Paper – Southern Europe’s Institutional Decline

Challe, Edouard and Lopez, Jose Ignacio and Mengus, Eric, Southern Europe’s Institutional Decline (June 9, 2016). HEC Paris Research Paper No. ECO/SCD-2016-1148. Available for dowload at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2792621 “The run up to the euro currency initiated a period of capital inflows into southern European countries, i.e., Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. We document that those… Continue Reading

GAO – IRS Needs to Update Its Risk Assessment for the Taxpayer Protection Program

Identity Theft and Tax Fraud: IRS Needs to Update Its Risk Assessment for the Taxpayer Protection Program, GAO-16-508: Published: May 24, 2016. Publicly Released: Jun 23, 2016. “Taxpayer Protection Program (TPP). While the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made efforts to strengthen TPP—a program to authenticate the identities of suspicious tax return filers and prevent… Continue Reading

DPLA and FamilySearch Partner to Expand Access to Digitized Historical Books Online

“In concert with the American Library Association national conference in Orlando, Florida, this week, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and FamilySearch International, the largest genealogy organization in the world, have signed an agreement that will expand access to FamilySearch.org’s growing free digital historical book collection to DPLA’s broad audience of users including genealogists, researchers,… Continue Reading