Misery

 

Outlaw Blues

Ain't it hard to stumble
And land in some funny lagoon
Ain't it hard to stumble
And land in some muddy lagoon
Especially when it's nine below zero
And three o'clock in the afternoon

That’s nine below a relative zero, regardless of the time!

Being below a relative zero is cold.  Being below an absolute zero is impossible.  So is annual income a relative amount? or an absolute amount?  Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield said “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen, and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds, ought, and six, result misery.”  If we want to include both misery and happiness, income must therefore be measured on a relative scale.

The US Census reports on annual income, that has been adjusted for inflation, expressing it in 2021 US Dollars from 1968 to 2022. (actually the years are 1967 to 2021).  It also reports the income limits for various percentiles.  This allows the median and mean income to be calculated for each year which is reported.

When those reported incomes are fit to a hyperbolic tangent function, it is almost a perfect match to the distribution of income in 1968 (adjusted for inflation to 2021 US Dollars).  However a hyperbolic tangent requires both negative incomes and negative percents.  If the income and percentages are viewed as absolutes, then the income should not fall below $0, the perctages should not be negatives,  and the fit should be to a random curve which is adjusted from an exponential distribution. The distribution of income in 1968 did not follow this random curve.  However the policies in the intervening years have resulted in a distribution of income that is a better fit to a random curve, but it is also is more skewed to upper incomes and has increased the misery of those who are nearer, or below, zero income.