There are various studies as to how large the effect is, and it various substantially across income levels. Pure wage earners have the least control over their income structure and the least effect. At the high end, the correlation is apparently as high as .57: Try to increase tax rates to get $100 more, and $57 of income vanishes. Across the whole range of incomes, the sensitivity is apparently around .4.
You're right that your experience as a worker isn't particularly strong support for the thesis, but that's because that's not where the changes happen. Experience running a business or investing would be more relevant. Do you have a retirement account? Presumably, it's tax-deferred ...
Marginal tax rates were lower than 90% for much of the 30s-60s range (and higher for some): Tax rules get changed a lot. But there were also a lot of 'tax shelters', which were gamed to make real income not show up in the IRS income data. Are you measuring the gap by income (whose data?) or by wealth? In any case, there do exist many ways to reduce tax-visible gains, and they're used, a lot.
As for not studying economics: That's unfortunate. Based on how much you write about economic topics, it's pretty clear you care, and arguing from a position of deliberate ignorance is kind of strange. But if you balk at stuff like interpreting a supply & demand graph, I don't think I can explain some of this stuff to you. (Nor does it sound like you've understood Krugman, who has a lot of useful stuff to say.)
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You're right that your experience as a worker isn't particularly strong support for the thesis, but that's because that's not where the changes happen. Experience running a business or investing would be more relevant. Do you have a retirement account? Presumably, it's tax-deferred ...
Marginal tax rates were lower than 90% for much of the 30s-60s range (and higher for some): Tax rules get changed a lot. But there were also a lot of 'tax shelters', which were gamed to make real income not show up in the IRS income data. Are you measuring the gap by income (whose data?) or by wealth? In any case, there do exist many ways to reduce tax-visible gains, and they're used, a lot.
As for not studying economics: That's unfortunate. Based on how much you write about economic topics, it's pretty clear you care, and arguing from a position of deliberate ignorance is kind of strange. But if you balk at stuff like interpreting a supply & demand graph, I don't think I can explain some of this stuff to you. (Nor does it sound like you've understood Krugman, who has a lot of useful stuff to say.)