Catherine Rampell examines the “boom-bust-flip phenomenon” and other ways that “the financial crisis has benefited the upper class while brutalizing the middle class.”
“As foreclosures mounted and home prices plummeted…it was disparately the wealthier investors who bought them up at bargain prices… Now, five years after the start of the financial crisis, the housing market has come back, and many of these investors are cashing in.”
“And as wages and employment of the middle class have stagnated or fallen, tax policy has hurt them, too. Sure, the federal government raised the marginal tax rate on high earners earlier this year. But many state and local governments, desperate for revenue in the wake of major budget shortfalls, are raising consumption taxes through general sales taxes… These kinds of taxes and fees are regressive — the less money you make, the higher the share of your income you pay.”
