If you have capital to invest, there is no way to invest that capital that does not wind up with the income being unearned income. That is the nature of capital.

Your choices are to put the money in a mattress— where it will lose value according to inflation. Or you can spend it— you can buy goods and services, but of course there’s only so much you can consume.

You can buy tax-preferential status things, like bonds, which give tax-free investment income— at much lower rates of increase. Which is what a lot of people are now doing, because they’re scared by the lack of demand in the market. Not because taxes on dividends are at any specific level. Or taxes on capital gains. They’re seeking it because of the falling demand, caused by the decreased incomes in the middle and lower class.

That is the problem our society faces. an increasing divide between the very rich and the rest of society. Which means lower and lower demand.