The 11-to-1 Gap That Isn't — The Plains Ledger

Eleven to one. That's the reported income gap between Kansas's top and bottom fifth — the number that gets cited whenever someone argues Kansas needs more redistribution, the way Europe supposedly has.

Count what that number leaves out — taxes, tax credits, SNAP, Medicaid — and it falls by more than half. Do the same for Britain, using Britain's own official statistics, and the two countries land far closer together than 11-to-1 implies. If Kansas has a problem, it isn't a shortage of redistribution.

— Josh

Josh Dambacher — The Plains Ledger

Weekly Brief

New · August 2026 Economics & Inequality · 6 min read

The 11-to-1 Gap That Isn't

Kansas is often told it needs more redistribution to close the gap with Europe. Count taxes, credits and healthcare, and most of that gap disappears on its own. Redistribution isn't the problem. Affordability might be.

"Eleven-to-one isn't a lie. It's just an unfinished sentence."

Read the Essay →

Working through 2024 Census data stage by stage — income, then direct taxes, then tax credits and SNAP, then healthcare — the 11.1-to-1 gap between Kansas's top and bottom fifth falls to about 5.3-to-1. Progressive taxes do most of that work before a single benefit check goes out.

Then the essay runs the same math for Britain, using the UK's own official statistics. Britain redistributes more aggressively than America does — but the two systems get there through very different machinery, and the final gap between Kansas and Britain turns out to be far narrower than either side of the debate assumes.

None of that settles whether more redistribution is a good idea. That's about cost and incentives, and the essay says so directly. What it does settle is the number everyone starts with.

"A household in the bottom fifth doesn't become more prosperous merely because a household in the top fifth pays more tax."

— Josh Dambacher

A Kansas family doesn't live inside an inequality ratio. It lives on what its resources can buy — which is exactly where the next essay in this series picks up. The full calculation and both tables are in this week's essay.

Read the full essay →

Also from The Plains Ledger

Medicaid Is the Symptom. Demographics Is the Problem.

Kansas didn't suddenly become wasteful after COVID. It became older. The budget debate in Topeka is answering the wrong question.

Property Tax Relief Needs More Homes

Kansas is debating the cost of owning a home. It should also be debating the cost of buying one.

The Next Productivity Revolution May Favor Kansas.

The forces that made leaving feel necessary for a century are weakening — and for the first time, Kansas has an opening.

About the author

Josh Dambacher is a fifth-generation Kansan who attended public schools in Kansas and is on the Board of Literacy Partners. He is a Managing Partner at a leading international law firm, a spokesman for Republicans Overseas, and a regular commentator on American politics for the BBC, CNN International, GB News, and TalkTV. He writes The Plains Ledger from London.

The Plains Ledger

You're receiving this because you subscribed at theplainsledger.com.
Unsubscribe · Visit the site · Privacy Policy

The 11-to-1 Gap That Isn't

The 11-to-1 Gap That Isn't

Keep reading

The Plains Ledger