Americans may be working the equivalent of more than half a year just to meet their tax obligations. A professor of economics at the University of Michigan, Mark Perry, links to an Americans for Tax Reform paper celebrating Cost of Government Day. The “holiday” is an ironic celebration of the day on which “the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on federal, state, and local levels.” This year, the date fell on July 16, meaning Americans for Tax Reform projects the average working American will toil 197 days this year just to meet the tax burden imposed by government.

Mr. Perry remarks on another wrinkle emerging from observing Cost of Government Day: “Isn’t it ironic that we celebrate Independence Day on July 4 to recognize our rejection of oppressive British regulation, mercantilism and taxation, and yet the typical American now works until the middle of July to pay for Big Government?” he writes. “In other words, we celebrate our declaration of independence from the British government in early July before we are even free from the burden of our current government!”

The Value of College

On “Economist’s View,” a professor of economics at Oregon University, Mark Thoma, considers whether American students’ consistent underperformance on aptitude tests means they will be less competitive in the global market. American high school students perform worse on international standardized tests than many of their counterparts in other industrialized countries, which could affect their prospects for finding work in a world where companies can gather workforces from all over the world.

Mr. Thoma cites a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco that demonstrates an advantage for American students that usually goes unnoticed: the advantage of American higher education. Americans have the highest rate of college completion in the world, and Americans with college degrees compare favorably with others from their age group internationally. Mr. Thoma suggests that Americans stand to gain more from college than people from other countries, but wonders if this advantage will endure as other countries develop their higher education systems.

Wealth and Vengeance

Vengefulness correlates to one’s social position, according to a study considered by Tyler Cowen at “Marginal Revolution.” A professor of economics at Louisiana State University, Naci Mocan, surveyed 89,000 people from 53 countries to determine what socioeconomic factors play a role in prompting someone to seek vengeance.

“Females, older people, … people who live in high-crime areas of their country and people who are at the bottom 50% of their country’s income distribution are more vengeful,” Mr. Mocan writes. He adds that incidents of vengeance drop off as a society grows more prosperous. Mr. Mocan does not explain one of the more interesting correlations he discovered: rich people in poor, diverse countries are as vengeful as poor people in rich, homogeneous ones.