[jogjayr]

OTOH passive investment will only track the market and return an average of 7-10%. Compared to that small-time landlording (which I define as 1-10 units), a popular side-income stream for many working professionals, returns 10-20% in return for higher risk and volatility (you could get bad tenants or have units go vacant).

Also since passive investment requires "no skill and little luck" it's one of the few entry routes into the capital-owning class available to working-class people and middle-class professionals. Anyone can buy an ETF for a couple hundred dollars. You don't need a hot stock tip or a insider lead on an undervalued property. So I'm not sure why one would want to start treating unearned income exactly the same as earned income at the precise point in history that we've learned about the magic of passive investment.

[walshemj]

Its not fraking "income" for gods sake if you don't know the difference between income and capital gain you probably should learn it before commenting on this issue.

[jogjayr]

"Unearned income includes investment-type income such as taxable interest, ordinary dividends, and capital gain distributions."[1]

"Unearned income includes things like annuity payments, pension income, distributions from retirement accounts, capital gains, interest income, dividends, passive income generated from rental real estate, alimony, stock dividends, and bond interest." [2]

Sorry...is that what you meant? Or were you referring to the definition of earned income?

1. https://apps.irs.gov/app/IPAR/resources/help/unearn.html 2. https://www.thebalance.com/earned-income-is-taxed-differentl...

[walshemj]

Trouble is "unearned income" is one of those dog whistle worlds like "rent seekers" - which tends to lead to rants about "the gold standard" and onwards to well we all know where that ends.