Chart of the Day: Rich People’s Taxes Have Little to Do with Job Creation

It's time for a balanced approach to our state and federal budgets, and way past time for some shared sacrifice. 

From Michael Linden, the Director of Tax and Budget Policy at the Center American Progress: 

[I]f you ranked each year since 1950 by overall job growth, the top five years would all boast marginal tax rates at 70 percent or higher. The top 10 years would share marginal tax rates at 50 percent or higher. The two worst years, on the other hand, were 2008 and 2009, when the top marginal tax rate was 35 percent. In the 13 years that the top marginal tax rate has been at its current level or lower, only one year even cracks the top 20 in overall job creation.

We showed last week that lower rates are not associated with faster overall economic growth—just the opposite, in fact. And now we know that lower rates don’t coincide with higher job growth, either. So where is the evidence that the lower marginal tax rates spur job creation? It’s certainly not present in the past 60 years of American history.

It’s worth keeping this in mind the next time a conservative lawmaker claims that raising the rates for the wealthy would “destroy jobs.”