That seems true, but I don't think that is where the phrase "A poor man never gave me a job or a paycheck, son" is targeted. It's about creating businesses that hire the people to serve that consumption. Yes, the workers are being hired to build houses, but they are not each individually getting their paychecks from the homeowner. A contractor is dealing with their payroll, insurance, scheduling, taking on risk, etc, so that all those workers can be organized to complete a job. For that, I expect the contractor to make more money, even become 'rich' ahead of the laborers.
So in general, it is the 'rich man' and not the 'poor man' providing the paycheck. And most of them earn it, because they are a little more motivated, a little more risk taking, a little more organized to do that kind of work. Many of the laborers just want to show up and do their job and that's fine. But don't expect to get 'rich' that way.
Many other businesses really take an influx of capital to get off the ground. A group of 'poor' people just aren't likely to to get that going.
I think there was a circular discussion on this earlier, with someone saying without all this consumption there are no jobs, but without the business there is no product to consume, and round-round. It seems clear that it takes all the pieces of the puzzle, but I'd wager that on average, employers are richer than employees. Hence the phrase.
-ERD50
I think you're putting the most positive possible interpretation on the phrase, and I agree with much of what you say.
IMO, the phrase usually gets corrupted into "We shouldn't tax rich people because they 'create' jobs." And taxes are the topic of this thread.
It reminds me of a Peanuts strip where Snoopy was jogging and his heart and legs were arguing about who was "more" important. Or, arguing which wheel on a bicycle is more important.
I'd say that in our complex economy, we need lots of specialists - plumbers, engineers, accountants, salespeople, customer service reps, managers, etc.
Like you say, in most businesses managers bring all the other people together into a coordinated team. That's an important contribution to the whole and is usually well compensated. In smaller businesses, the owner is often the top manager.
Most businesses also need financial capital, and that may come from middle class stockholders or savers, middle class sole proprietors, rich successful entrepreneurs, rich heirs, etc.
When I look at the economy, it seems that most wage earners do not work for businesses that are owned and managed by a successful proprietor/entrepreneur. Most work for stockholder owned corporations, partnerships, sole proprietorships, etc.
My problem with the phrase is the notion that the rich owner/manager is somehow so important that they need to have special tax rules for all rich people (not just the owner/managers). I think we need all types of labor and all types of capital.
I don't think that progressive taxes cause any harm to our economy just because they sometimes impact successful manager/owners. The before-tax rewards of those jobs are high enough to attract plenty of people even with progressive taxes.
(This is a little like saying NFL teams will have no trouble filling their rosters even if the most successful players pay pretty high taxes. The after-tax rewards still far exceed anything else those individuals might do.)
