Ever wonder how much money do the top income earners make? Once you know how much the top income earners make, then you can better shoot to be a top income earner yourself. After all, everything is relative when it comes to money.
Americans are rich by world standards. With a median household income of roughly $76,000, America consistently ranks in the Top 20 richest countries in the world. Many of the world’s top income earners live right here in our great country. Just being born into a rich country makes us very lucky.
Other rich countries that have a higher GDP per capita than America include Liechtenstein ($139K), Qatar, Monaco, Macau, Luxembourg, Bermuda, Singapore, Isle of Man, Brunei, Ireland, Norway, Falkland Islands, UAB, S. Maarten, Kuwait, and Gibraltar. Countries with similar GDP per capita to America include Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia.
If at birth, you had the mental capacity to choose where you’d like to live for most of your life, living in a top 20 richest country will more than likely help you become a top income earner as well.
Even if you end up being the most mediocre producer, you are still miles ahead of much of the world. Too bad many of us can’t pick where we want to grow up and earn a living. As such, it’s nice to understand how we compare against the rest of the world to give us some perspective.
Let’s take a look at what the top income earners make in America. Once you know the income figures, you can then strategize on how to get there.
What The Top 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%, and 50% Income Earners Make
Based on the Internal Revenue Service’s database, here’s how much the top Americans make for 2022. These are estimates due to rising inflation. Since the previous financial crisis in 2008 – 2009, the top 10% have significantly widened the wealth gap.
- Top 1%: $500,000+
- Top 5%: $180,000+
- Top 10%: $130,000+
- Top 25%: $80,000+ $67,280
- Top 50%: >$40,000
The rich have gotten much richer during the pandemic. Therefore, the top income earners are making even more than ever before. Sadly, the wealth gap has widened as we continue through a K-shaped recovery.
Summary Of Top Income Earners Tax Data
Here is data from the IRS that highlights what the top income earners made back in 2015. A top income earner is considered someone who makes a top 10%, top 5%, and top 1% income. Notice how much the top income earners are making today, partially thanks to inflation.
There is not a lot of data about the mega-rich, those in the top 0.1%. However, I also write a huge post highlighting people who make over $1 million a year and how.
Based on a previous 1000+ survey study on Financial Samurai in Fall 2020, about 80% of readers are in the Top 25% income earners ($67,000+). Good to know that many of you are doing well.
The table also tells us a number of things about equality or inequality, namely that the top 1% of tax payers pay 38% of all income taxes yet only have a 20% share of total AGI.
Further, the top 50% of tax payers pay practically all of the nation’s federal taxes (97.3%) while commanding 87.25% of total AGI. This table from the IRS is the source for the often politically bantered argument that 47% of American income earners pay zero federal income taxes.
If you do another little exercise and compare the top 25% of American income to the Top 10 per capita income countries in the world, you can once again see how lucky most of us are.
Broaden Tax Collection Beyond Just The Top Income Earners
If only we could get all American wage earns to pay some taxes. It would go a long way to help shoring up our budget. Congress constantly holds the nation hostage by bickering over whether to cut $10 billion here, $50 billion there. All we have to do is encourage those who earn above the poverty line to pay some tax. We’d raise billions a year right there for example!
Let’s have everyone contribute to the welfare of our country. We are all in this together! For those who are just struggling to keep their heads above water, let’s lend them a helping hand.
The top 1% income earner in 2022 is now earning at least $500,000 a year. But in some states, like Connecticut, the top income earners make over $580,000 a year.
Who Are The Majority Who Pay No Federal Income Taxes?
Back around 2015, roughly 47% of Americans pay no income taxes. In 2022, roughly 60% of working Americans didn’t pay any federal income taxes, largely due to the pandemic. As the pandemic becomes endemic, the likelihood is that more Americans go back to work, make more money, and pay more taxes.
The Americans who pay no income taxes fall into three groups:
The working poor. The earned income tax credit and the child credit can help families making $50,000 or more pay no taxes or get money back. About 60% of those not paying income taxes do contribute to payroll taxes. Meaning they must have some source of earned income.
The elderly. An increased standard deduction for those over 65, and an exemption on part of Social Security earnings, means that many older Americans pay no income taxes. Please remember though that the elderly have paid their dues through decades worth of federal taxation during their careers.
The low-income. A family of four claiming only the standard deduction and personal exemptions pays no federal income tax on its first ~$26,000 of income. The standard deduction per person is now $12,550 in 2021. Further, each family gets a $500 child tax credit.
Not Everybody Has The Ability To Make A Top Income
As you can see, being poor or elderly likely means you don’t pay net federal income taxes. We’re all going to grow old one day, so let’s give this group a pass. The elderly paid into the system, so let’s take care of them. I don’t think any of us would rather be poor so we can pay no federal taxes. Therefore, let’s give them a pass too.
This leaves us with a low-income group that may have made some suboptimal decisions. Some of these decisions include having children while not being able to support themselves. Children are estimated to cost roughly $250,000 from the ages of 1-18. Perhaps having multiple children on a low income is not ideal. But, how do you deny passion?
Living In America Is Rich
If you work in America, you can see from a top down and bottoms up perspective you’re doing fantastic. If you are in the bottom 50% of Americans who earn less than $33,048 a year, know that you can earn more if you want to.
Part of battle to making more money is moving to areas where there are more opportunity. Earning a top one percent income for your age is a numbers game that also requires a lot of luck.
Billions of dollars are flowing through cities like San Francisco due to technology innovation. It’s not like you have to brave the high seas to reach America to get rich. It’s not like you need to ride a horse for three months to get from New York to California. All you’ve got to do is hop on a bus or a plane to be where the action is.
25 years ago, I remember making $550 a month working at McDonald’s for $3.75/hour. With wages 3X higher now, I’d be pulling in $1,650 a month or $20,000 a year! Heck, tack on driving for Uber for 20 hours a week part-time at $36/hour. You’ll make another $2,000 a month and be in the top 50% of income earners no problem.
There’s an entire gig economy out there for freelancers to make extra money after work, or freelance full time. Why not take advantage to become a top income earner yourself?
Please Put In The Work To Grow Your Income And Wealth
If you are only working 40 hours a week or less and complaining why you can’t get ahead, you need to seriously re-evaluate your work ethic and expectations. Anybody can do it. You just can’t be delusional enough to think that you’ll be able to compete when everybody in the world who wants to get ahead is working 60+ hours a week and getting paid much less to boot!
Spend some time online understanding global wages from our biggest competitors in China and India. In order to maintain our incomes, we must constantly be updating our skills.
There are plenty of six figure jobs out there for the taking. You just need to have the desire, motivation, work ethic, and perseverance to get there. Did you know the San Francisco police chief makes $320,000 a year? Further, when he retires, he’ll get a $200,000 a year pension for life! It’s not just doctors, lawyers, venture capitalists, bankers, movie stars and athletes who make healthy sums of money.
A Variety Of Jobs Pay Well
Even my friend who is a union electrician makes $120,000 a year. He also gets a $5,000 a month pension when he retires at 55. What’s more, he isn’t allowed to work more than 35 hours a week. Let’s not count the $30,000 a year he makes doing side jobs with all that free time. There are six figure earners in practically every single industry, including the non-profit industry!
Back to my point where if everybody earns a million dollars a year, nobody is rich. Living in San Francisco, it certainly feels like most are in the top 5% of income earners ($159,619). Train janitors and elevator technicians in the Bay Area can make over $250,000 a year with overtime.
I’m sure many who live and work in Manhattan, and potentially LA and Chicago feel the same way. The cost of living is expensive out here, and that’s predominantly driven by high wages.
Combine two income earners with these amounts, and you can really start understanding why surpassing what the government deems as wealthy ($250,000) is not too difficult. Thankfully in 2022+, President Biden only wants to raise taxes on households making over $400,000 a year.
In fact, I argue that in many of the larger cities in America, you’ve got to earn closer to $300,000 a year just to live a middle class lifestyle. It sounds crazy. But it’s true if you take a careful look at the budget I put together. A middle-class lifestyle means owning a home, being able to raise two kids, and save for retirement.
The Top Income Earners Pay The Most Taxes
The top 1% of income earners will likely continue to pay a higher percentage share of overall income taxes than their share of income justifies. If things were fair, the top 1% would only have to pay 20% of total income taxes since 20% is their share of total income. Alas, the rich pay almost double what they owe.
Therefore, it’s not worth constantly demonizing the rich for “not paying their fair share.” The rich donate the most and employ the most people.
On the flip side, the bottom 50% who earn 12.75% of total earnings only pay 2.7% in total taxes. But, as we learned above, most of the bottom 50% are elderly or poor. Nobody is asking the bottom 50% to pay more taxes.
It’s impossible to create a fair tax system that everybody will agree on. But we can look at the data to understand who is making the most and least income. We can see who is paying the most and least in taxes.
It’s great to be a top income earner. However, it’s even greater to be happy. Find your balance!
Here are three things top income earners do below.
Top Income Earners Invest In Real Estate
Real estate is one of the favorite asset classes to build wealth by top income earners. Real estate is tangible, provides utility, and generates valuable income. With mortgage rates staying at record-lows and more people working from home, the growth of real estate will likely be strong for years to come.
Top income earners invest in rental properties for cash flow and capital appreciation. Top income earners tend to also be extremely busy. Therefore, they like to invest in real estate crowdfunding and private real estate to earn 100% passively.
Best Private Real Estate Investing Platforms
Fundrise is the best real estate crowdfunding platform where investors can invest in private eREITs that invest in hundreds of properties across America. By investing in a diversified fund, investors gain real estate exposure in a low volatility way.
Fundrise is free to usign up and explore. With inflation picking up, it’s a good idea to invest in real estate to ride the inflation wave. Investing in the heartland is a 30 decade investing trend.
For accredited investors who like to invest in individual deals, take a look at CrowdStreet. CrowdStreet focuses on commercial real estate opportunities in 18-hour cities. 18-hour cities have higher growth rates, lower valuations, and higher cap rates than 24-hour cities. Think Charleston, South Carolina versus New York City, New York.
Due to demographic shifts to lower cost areas of the country, the closely vetted CrowdStreet deals in 18-hour cities look attractive as well. CrowdStreet is also free to sign up and explore. With CrowdStreet, you can build your own select real estate fund.
Personally, I’ve invested $810,000 in 18 real estate deals across the heartland of America. The income is completely passive. Further, I get to diversify my real estate holdings away from expensive San Francisco.
Top Income Earners Own Businesses
We are in the technology and internet age now. If you really want unlimited earnings potential, you might as well be your own boss someday. It costs so little now to just start your own website so you can brand yourself online.
You will connect with like-minded people, find new jobs and consulting opportunities, and potentially make a healthy living online. Take a look at this income statement example of a friend with a simple personal finance blog.
I started Financial Samurai in 2009 as a hobby to help make sense of the financial destruction back then. Today, Financial Samurai is one of my most valuable assets.
You can start your WordPress site like this one with Bluehost for as little as $2.95 a month. Come up with a unique and memorable domain name. Find a free website theme. Then connect your hosting and you’ll be up and running in 30 minutes.
The best thing you can do while you have a job is work on your side hustle during off hours. You never know what might happen if you just start.
Top Income Earners Track Their Net Worth
Finally, top income earners religiously track their net worths. You can only truly optimize your wealth if you know where all your money is going. Sign up for Personal Capital, the web’s #1 free wealth management tool to get a better handle on your finances.
I’ve been using them since 2012 and have made much wiser financial decisions since. In addition to better money oversight, run your investments through their award-winning Investment Checkup tool. The tool will show you exactly how much you are paying in fees. Further, it will give you insights into your asset allocation. I was paying $1,700 a year in fees I had no idea I was paying.
After you link all your accounts, use their Retirement Planning calculator. It pulls your real data to give you as pure an estimation of your financial future as possible. Your financial future is too important not to take it seriously. You don’t want to end up old and not have enough money because there is no rewind button!
Join 60,000+ others and subscribe to my free weekly newsletter. Since 2009, the newsletter has helped people achieve financial freedom sooner, rather than later. If you want to be one of the top income earners, you need as much actionable advice as possible.
To be a top income earner, you’ve really got to want it! And to help you get there, pick up a hard copy of my new book, Buy This, Not That: How To Spend Your Way To Wealth And Freedom. The book is your unfair advantage for getting rich and making optimal decisions.
LOL….I always laugh when i read these things. If you want to do better it is easy in America. Stop whinning and get off your butt. I work 75 hours a week and my wife workes 40. We have three kids and are in the 25%..almost 10% area. I am proud of the work we have done to get here. SO if you want to do better..just do it..and eventually it will pay off….otherwise..stop being part of the problem.
freestuff – I’m glad you’re proud of the fact that you and your wife work so hard. Let me ask, how long would your savings last if you became unable to work for six months or a year?
My point was not whining (which is how it is spelled by the way) since I was not discussing my own situation. I am in the 5 percent for current income but I have not always been there and I’m only just now starting to build for old age security and income security. But once I have my retirement secure and then I have ensured I can continue to earn an income while I do other things, then I don’t see the need to keep making more. In the mean time, I am proud to pay my taxes, contribute to charity, help family and friends, etc.
But I have not always been in this position. I, too, have worked very hard (while helping people along the way). I have worked in small businesses and very large corporations. I have been self-employed a couple of times my first at 22 and I currently own a business on top of my full-time work and volunteer time. I’ve been very poor and I’ve been in better financial situations than I am currently. I’ve had tough breaks and I’ve had some very, very fortunate opportunities. I am a smart, hard-working person. But I’ve also had a fair share of luck and been in a position to take advantage of that luck.
But probably my biggest strength is my ability to empathize with others. I don’t find it takes too much imagination to see how just a few bad breaks can devastate someone’s whole life. In part, because I’ve been there. But I’ve also pulled myself out with the help of others. It’s not hard for me to imagine that others can be in similar situations who don’t get the help.
I think too many people like freestuff suffer from a lack of imagination. They figure that just because they’ve never been in a situation that it is a character flaw for someone who is. Those who have been in a tough spot in the past and got through it feel that because they were able to do it, others should, too. There’s no room in their thinking for differences, no matter how small or profound, that may account for different outcomes for others in similar circumstances. It’s a very narrow view.
But my favorite is from those who say, “I’ve been in the same situation and no one helped me!” They are the ones who demonstrate, as human beings, just how small they really are.
Well thanks for the responce. Well stated and I am glad you did so well. I feel the same way about helping others..as long as they help themselves. I don’t believe in giving to someone who just sucks off others. I have been there and as you dont know me you could not understand how poor I was, the drug abuse, physical abuse, and mental abuse in my family. I am not saying this to look for empathy but you seem to judge others by what you see yourself as. You sound like a nice generous person and I also constantly help those in need…but I expect them to help themselves too. One thing I can not stand is someone who does nothing and stands with their hand out. Sorry thats just me. Again thanks I enjoyed reading your responce
Sorry response..spelled wrong..lol…I hate typing
I, too, hate typing. I especially hate auto correct on my phone! :-)
I do judge others by what I see in myself but only as a starting point. We all judge others first by what we know. I think that was the larger point I was trying to make. Much of my experience comes from advocating for those less fortunate. I’ve heard their stories. I’ve also come to a conclusion that I know will probably sound strange to you. I don’t believe in “lazy” people.
think about it, who would want to be lazy?
Sure, there are some people who want the shortcut to a better life. But who would choose to be “lazy.”
Instead, I think what many people see as lazy are people who live with depression, attention deficit and/or hyperactivity disorder, myriad mental illnesses, etc. The problem is that most people don’t recognize their issues or don’t know how to deal with them if they acknowledge them.
You may even be one of the people who think such disorders are over-diagnosed and simply give people an excuse to be lazy, etc.
I think there are some people who get a diagnosis and treat it as an excuse. Then there are other people who get a diagnosis and are then set on the path to deal with it because they can now learn to treat it and/or better cope with it.
Probably my biggest issue is with the concept that people don’t change. It is the basis of so much unwillingness to help others because they consider them doomed to their genetics or their bad habits, etc. It makes it so very easy to ignore the plight of others by writing them off. Not only can they justify not paying for them, but also to justify in their own mind that it’s OK to do so.
For the many people it boils down to simple cognitive dissonance – they have competing interests and beliefs on one hand where they are told that in order to be good Christians (or whatever their faith or morals may dictate) that they are to help the least among us. But their self interest puts people in a position of ignoring or modifying some of their moral beliefs in order to advance these self interests. This dissonance creates such a conflict that people not only begin to justify their positions of self-interest at the expense of others but they very often do so with such ferocity that they actually convince themselves that they hate the others and that they deserve their hate and derision, etc.
I have spent a great deal of time with so many types of people. I started out my adult life a conservative. I’ve worked with very conservative people and I’ve worked with very liberal people. Mostly, I’ve worked with people who didn’t fit these limited viewpoints at all. They were just people who were trying to get by as best they could. Sometimes they succeed. Other times they fail. One thing that is universal to everyone is their ability to fool themselves into believe all sorts of things about themselves and others so they can sleep at night.
I know I’m no exception I just try to catch myself when I do it.
It just so happens that I AM the world’s greatest lover, humanitarian, gourmet cook and generally nice guy. And I’m sticking to that story.
Oh and sorry if you thought this was meant for you..I was just leaving a open statement of my thoughts…I was in no way meaning it toward you.
But I Just read your response above mine…lol I can see how you would have taken it that way….
LOL…you obviously havent watched my video..I am the worlds greates lover but you probably cook better than me…maybe..:}
Hey jefndenver,
I agree in part to what you said about having issues and not seeing them. Recently (over the last 6 months to a year) I’ve come to a new understanding of what “I call” lazy.
I get aggreveated to all ___ when I hear people whine and complain about their lives or jobs. Now I’m not talking major things like deaths in the family, or cancer or your kid just got caught with drugs. I’m talking people complaining about having to get up in the morning. Or they had to put a couple of extra hours in. Or they had to stand on their feet all day. Sometimes its that they want praise for doing just the basic things in life. They expect a cookie, just for doing their job.
In the past, I’ve viewed all or at least most of this as lazy. I’ve come to realize that not everybody has the same strength or stamina or chutzpah in life. They haven’t excercised enough.
Let me explain. A 300 pound out of shape guy walks onto a football field. No practice, no experience. He gets manhandled out there. Oh he’s got the size of a football player. but thats it.
Take another 300 pound guy whose been practicing and playing football. He does the manhadling.
Whats changed?
The skill and development. One guy gets manhandled and complains that, “its too hard”. The other guy easily overcomes.
Is football any harder for one than the other. Yes AND no. For the first guy, football is hard NOW, but not AS for the second. Why. Because the second one already did all the hard work earlier to make things easier now.
Another example. Lifting weights. 2 guys, both lifting 250 lbs. It takes the same energy for both to lift 250lbs. The difference is one guys been lifting and training and the other guy hasn’t. One guy has to put seemingly more effort in. Is it any easier? Same weight. Its just that one guy is used to lifting 250 pounds, where the other hasn’t. One is trying to expend all his strength NOW to lift it. The other expended his energy earlier.
So how does that fit my idea of work and how I saw lazy.
I’ve got a buddy. He drives semis. He’d complain about how hard his job is. And what a good worker he was.
I’d roll my eyes. I work construction.
One day he had a tree cut down in his yard. I came over to help. In a short while he was tired. He was going for the smaller stuff, and I grabbed the chain saw and went after the bigger stuff. He’d grab branches and I’d grab logs. When he was worn out, I was just getting going.
The point, he always complained about how tough his job was, but how good of a worker he was, but when it came time to do tough work, he folded. I work hard labor all the time. Its common place for me.
My buddy’s wife would complain about how far he has to drive to work. About 25 miles one way. I do 120 miles round trip 6 days a week.
Again, my point is, I’m used to the drive, he wasn’t. (Kinda funny, considering he’s a truck driver).
The point I guess is we are all used to certain ideas or thoughts about work or life. We don’t understand our issues until AFTER we are confronted by them.
A person who is used to working 40 hours a week is STRAINED going to 50. But somebody working 60 looks at it as a break. Is the 40 hour worker being lazy? Not really (Just a whiner).
Like you said earlier, they just don’t understand their situation in life and how to deal with it.
I have a cousin. (I’m still not sure SHE’S NOT lazy) Never had a real job, and she’s 49. She’s always babysat others kids. Recently life has hit her and her husband hard (mostly their own doing) They’re on government aid. She has to go in for job training, which she gets paid for. Other things in life come along, and she gets mad when they tell her she needs to treat her training like a job. Her training is about 20 hours a week. She complains about not having time to do things around the house. I want to b!t@# slap her. But I remember she’s at the learning curve of work ethic when it comes to a job. I’m already used to 60 hour weeks.
I’m still not convinced its not laziness, but I’m trying to give her the benefit of a doubt.
My issue is, I’m used to putting my head down and attacking a issue head on. For me its always been work a little harder or work a little more.
I guess for some, its not quite so cut and dry. Its a learning process for me.
I just hope I don’t choke someone before I learn it :)
By the way. I was just in Denver a week and a half ago.
I love it out there.
Here is an important thing that people are forgetting, those same people that pay damn near HALF of the income taxes in our country also employ damn near EVERYONE in the country. Also, anyone who strives to just work a minimum wage job for all eternity should maybe reacess their priorities in life. I work more than full time, well over 50 hours a week, in the military, deploy to third world countries for months on end and I still find time to take college classes in my free time so that when and if I decide to get out I wont have to work a minimum wage job. I know multiple women who are single mothers, sometimes of more than one child, but still find time to go to school to get degrees to better there lives and earn a better income for their family. Two of my favorite sayings in life are “Excuses are like a@@ holes, everyones got one and they all stink” and one is a quote from the movie Caddie Shack “the world needs ditch diggers too.” If someone wants to settle for a low income job than that is a CHOICE that they make but by doing so they choose to live a low income lifestyle; in other words reading about celebrities vacations instead of taking them. I absolutely refuse to think that it is fair to tax someone 38 percent of their income in ANY circumstance. That seems a lot like punishing someone for being succesful to me regaurdless of their “ability” to pay. Another thing I love too is when people bring up luxory taxes as an expense. Here’s an idea, if you can’t afford the taxes on booze and cigarrettes or the sales tax on a new car than maybe you shouldn’t BUY booze and cigarettes or that new car! The other thing that bothers the absolute hell out of me is that people like my father, who probably fall into that top five or ten percent but have earned it every step of the way have to pay so much of their income into taxes when others who have literally screwed up their lives and made bad decisions sit back and live off of other peoples success and good decisions. My dad did not go to college, started out in the electronics industry in the silicone valley running an injection molding machine making the connectors that go into computers, took night classes in business management in his free time and eventually got a job as a manager. Worked his ass off while raising two kids and supporting a stay at home mom and eventually was a regional sales manager. When my parents got divorced my dad QUIT a six figure a year job to go into business with his brother so he could be closer to home and now runs his own succesful business and all that is coming from a public school education and living in a household with 3 siblings on a public school teacher’s salary. My grandmother was a first generation immigrant from Guatemala and came to this country at 6 without being able to speak a single word of English but learned to speak so well you would have never known it was her second language. She also never got less than a “B” in a single class in school and literally worked every single day of her life from 16 till she died at 81 years old not because she had to but because she LIKED TO WORK for a living. Thats 65 years of employment without ever taking a dime from the system. I am so disgusted now by what I have started to call “The American Feeling of Entitlement” that is the new plague of our country. What ever happened to EARNING the American Dream instead of expecting it to be handed to you for being born here? Everyone in our country wants something for nothing now. I keep reading articles about unemployment and how we need to extend unemployment benefits and yet, when I do some research I find hundreds of manual labor or low skilled labor jobs all over the country and all that took was a simple craigslist search. Unfortuanetely people would rather take a free check from the government than come home with sore muscles from a manual labor job. My other favorite excuse is “I can’t afford school” but I am pretty sure every American has the right to enlist in the military and EARN the GI Bill but that would require sacrifice and no one in our country wants to sacrifice to get ahead anymore.
Kyle makes excellent points. But he also seems to suffer from only being able to see the circumstances he or his family experienced. Not everyone is so fortunate.
I have spent my entire adult life advocating for people with disabilities and those who’ve just had some bad breaks. One inexplicable conclusion is that it is incredibly difficult to break out of the cycle of poverty. No, it’s not always impossible. But the odds are stacked against you.
For them, one illness can put them into bankruptcy because they can’t afford health insurance, what insurance is available on the non-group, commercial market is too expensive and covers too little. And if there’s a pre-existing condition, you’re SOL.
Assume you go through several years without a serious illness or accident. You still get sick and for every day you take off work, you don’t get paid. So you come back to work while you’re still sick (and contagious) putting your low-income co-workers in the same situation. If you work in any industry with contact with people, you put a lot of other people at risk, too.
At a minimum- or near-minimum wage job, how many days can you miss before bills start getting late. A simple late fee or bounce check charge can wipe away any savings you may have had.
Faced with challenges like this, people often make decisions to take a risk.
Perhaps they can skip their auto insurance for a month to get back on track. Even if they don’t get into an accident, they face incredibly hefty fines if they simply get caught driving without insurance and then they have the privilege of paying an extra fee for their insurance. Even if they don’t get caught, insurers charge a higher rate for those who can’t show they’ve had prior coverage.
And if there was an accident, he’d better hope the fault is clear because when it’s not, the person without insurance is going to be viewed as the most likely suspect. He won’t have an insurance company paid lawyer to contest the accident so even if it isn’t his fault, he’s probably going to pay for it anyway.
Let’s say they are able to get a temporary job, under the table, to make some extra cash. They get paid by check and think they are just going to cash it at the bank it is drawn on so they can pay the extra bills only to find that the bank the check is drawn on charges a fee to cash it’s own checks – something they know will not affect those with checking accounts.
Let’s hope this person remembers to declare the income even though he didn’t get a 1099 on his taxes or he will get hit with a 25 percent under reporting penalty and interest.
If you’re thinking such a low-income person is not likely to be audited, the most audited “profession” are tipped employees – particularly in the food service industry because they are able to catch hundreds at a time by a three-year audit of a single restaurant’s charge receipts (listed by employee). Once there is an audit, they have instant access to your bank records including that of your spouse or whomever you may share an account with.
Most food service workers can’t afford professional tax preparation to catch these things and to represent them at audits so they just end up paying.
How many of these things do you think it takes before someone who struggles every day to get by year-after-year, before they discouraged? Even depressed? Those with insurance can get some help, prescriptions, even therapy. Those without it may get to a clinic but then can’t follow through because they don’t have the money for the prescriptions. What’s even worse, they get some samples, they get started on the meds but can’t afford to keep it up so they stop which puts them at a greater risk of suicide (which disproportionately affects lower income groups and many children live in poverty for no other reason than a parent just plain died.
I know this sort of story sounds far-fetched to many people who’ve never lived it. But to the great many more in this country who’ve lived it or know someone who has, this is a very real scenario – a nightmare that just doesn’t seem to have an end.
I’ve heard the stories from many who have told me of their misfortune they were able to overcome. Some were stories similar to this. They are rare. Others tell me of their stories only to find that they were isolated and/or to discover that they had help getting out of it. Perhaps a family loan or an inheritance.
Even the concept of inheritance is completely different for people in lower income groups than for others. For some, the only thing they have to look forward to inheriting is their family propensity for alcoholism or Alzheimer’s. Where others get free money just for being born into the situation.
Even when higher-income people don’t inherit money or property, they are still in a much better situation to overcome negative circumstances than those who start out with nothing.
Yes, there are people who will take advantage of any help and feel they are entitled to it. I also know rich people with a similar sense of entitlement. Who is more likely to push a restaurant manager for a free meal because the server spilled some water in their lap. To the rich person, it is just another meal out. For the lower-income individual, it may have been their anniversary or other special occasion. But it is nearly always the rich person who will complain until they get something. I’ve even seen them insist the server be “punished” for such things.
Which brings me to my final point.
There are some people out there that the acquisition of wealth is paramount to everything else. Such individuals usually get wealth. Some of them even do so at the expense of others – stealing credit when it wasn’t earned or even stealing other people’s ideas, etc. (Like the saying goes, if you’re going to steal, you’re better off stealing $1 million versus $100. You’ll probably do easier time if caught and it will probably be less time, too.)
But the vast majority of people are not interested in being rich. Sure, they wouldn’t mind it if they made it big and some even play the lottery or resort to crime to get rich quick. They are not the majority. Most people just want to live a decent life, raise a family, retire and play with their grand kids. They’d like to do an occasional vacation and have a little money to give to their church and a favored charity. When they give to charity, many don’t give so their name gets put in a newsletter or on plaque. They just want to help.
For many people, they give even though it hurts. In fact, I personally don’t consider it “giving” unless it really does “hurt” to give. if the person giving is not sacrificing, they are likely getting a tax deduction or their name posted for all to see. Sure their money helps but it is no coincidence that nonprofits have all these different ways for people to show off their giving.
I’ve learned a very long time ago that when you break it down to the most basic components, human beings are motivated in the same manner as any other animal. They do things for one or both of two reasons: to gain a benefit and/or avoid a loss.
For some people, the benefit to be gained and loss to be avoided is simply to do right by others and keep their own head above water in the process. I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with that. In fact, I think that’s all most people want.
But instead, what we’ve seen is a series of polices that have made it impossible for those who don’t put wealth accumulation at the top of their list to keep their heads above water and we see policies where those who have wealth are able to keep and grow their wealth at an unprecedented rate.
It has been the policies from the Great Depression through the 1970s that built the middle class in this country. it is those same policies that has pulled more people out of poverty and allowed for more people to achieve wealth (if that’s what they want) than ever before or since.
It is not punishing a person who makes $10 million a year to pay a significantly higher tax rate than the person who spends 100 percent of his income just existing.
Yes, government needs to do a better job of spending our money.
Yes, we need to gear programs that empower people rather than breed dependence.
Conversely, there is no reason that at this time in this great country there should be people who freeze to death in winter or die of heat exposure in the summer.
No on should go hungry – especially children.
No one should die from or become disabled by a preventable or treatable condition for inability to pay for care.
To say otherwise says more about an individual than any insults or charges an opponent can throw at them.
I agree with you absolutely on some points. I work in the healthcare field so I know that there are most definetely illnesses that CAN prevent people from working and those people and the parents of those kids – who in my book are saints – should definetely recieve some form of compensation. However, I have also worked side by side, not in the military obviously, with a girl who had pretty sever down syndrome but still worked to earn her own living as a courtesy clerk at a local grocery store. I also worked with another girl who suffered from a form of mental retardation who not only worked as courtesy clerk making at the most 11 dollars an hour in Santa Cruz, CA which is not cheap and with the help of social security (I believe the handicapped qualify) was able to support herself on her own despite growing up in an abuse home and family environment. Obviously, I am well aware that that is not an option for everyone with a disability and I do think that it is our responsibility to take care of the people in our country who are truly in need. However, I believe that these people are the EXCEPTION and not the rule and it is very easy to medically prove if someone is physically/mentally able to work or not. I also agree that SOMETHING needs to be done about the healthcare situation in our country but that doesn’t change the fact that EVERYONE needs to pay taxes if we ever want to have a truly fare tax system. If someone makes ten mill a year I absolutely think it is unreasonable to take away 3.8 million of that JUST in income taxes. It takes away incentive to expand and create jobs and it also takes away incentive to provide employees with bigger raises, health care and 401k benefits. I still feel that people who “barely make enough money to exist” are there generally due to poor decisions they have made in their life. It doesn’t matter what those decisions where someone else made them and they have to live with them. Not to sound like a heartless son of a @#$&@ but fact of the matter is if you stick a needle in your arm, put your lips around a bottle, drop out of school/dont go to school, don’t use contraceptives, etc., than you now must have to live with those choices and should not rely on society to pick you back up when you have literally knocked yourself out of life. If those choices lead to you freazing to death on the street than that is one less freeloader in our society. I make less than 40 grand a year and I do still give to charity and I do not take a tax write off for it. Do the rich get to write off charity donations? Yes, they do, but there contributions are also so great that I believe many of the charities they donate to would not even exist without their contribuitons. I also agree with you entirely that our way of “helping” people needs to change. We should take the funds used in welfare and put them towards an after highschool education program to provide people better job training in entry level jobs. We also need to reevaluate the way we use our prison system. One of the groups of people that I feel the most sorry for are people that perhaps commited a crime out of desperation for whatever reason and honestly want to make a turn-a-round in there lives but literally can’t because they can’t get a job somewhere due to lack of education and a criminal record. A huge percentage of our prison population upon release reverts automatically back to a life of crime because they have no options. The prison environment also has just become a way for people to become better criminals. The only group of people in our country I feel truly sorry for though are the true victims of bad decision making, children. Children who are born to people who don’t really want them or even people that do want them but can’t afford them are the only people that are really victims of our society. I am also not “content with keeping my head above water” I would like to retire well before 60 or would like to save enough capital to start a small business and own a house or or maybe even two. I can do right by others without having the government tax my income and FORCE me to give my money to people that I feel don’t deserve it. In fact, I would probably give more money to charities that help real victims if I had more money after taxes to spare. The reason why people live in America and why even now people immigrate to this country is not so they can just float above water but so they can secure financial independence and freedom.
You need to learn how to do math. It would take $71/month for each of the 69 or so Billion bottom 50% earners to create $60B in tax revenue.
Yes, absolutely. Let’s take all those with mental or physical handicaps, all those who are very old, or very sick, and have them move to San Francisco whose vibrant social media will make it easy for them to work 40 hours a year.
That’s what I like about republicans. They can’t multiply or divide. They think vaccines cause mental retardation. They think anyone sick, old, or unlucky should be dumped in the middle of the ocean.
Ummmm.. do your math again. You’re embarrassing yourself. How many people are in this world? How many people live in America?
There is no hope for you, I’m sorry. But, at least there will be for someone else.
I am amazed as to how the rich see the people that work for them in labour positions as a burden to them. The rich feel that those physical labour jobs are given to them and they should just shut up and accept what ever money is handed down to them and be dam grateful for it. The rich want those lazy people to either get an education or start a business and make a way for themselves like the rich do.
The rich don’t understand that those people that work for them work hard everyday. 40 hrs a week and most likely no weekends off. They don’t have the energy to start their own business on top of everything. College is just too expensive. They go home in their run down car or take public transit and eat food that is either not fresh, (canned) and most likely no higher priced cuts of meat either. The home maybe older with rot in the walls or dusty duct ventilation because professionals are too expensive. Maybe the house is drafty or something else is wrong so that their general heath is never that great.
With everything against the working class it is a wonder not more criminals are created. The rich want to limit healthcare or raise its cost. Eliminate minimum wage because they think this will create more jobs for small business and therefore create more taxable revenue for the government. They also want the jobs to be part time so that any overtime won’t raise the hours over the 40 hrs a week so it will all be straight pay. This is just a trick to create more jobs. This is a type of Reaganomics or called Fiscal Conservatism.
This helps get businesses growing, the rich to get richer, grow the economy but what about all those people who earn less? The long term effect will be bigger burden on the healthcare system than ever. 20 or 30 years from now the only answer will be either mass extermination or more social programs than you can shake a stick at. The way the rich are talking now, which way do you think they will go?
So you might be asking yourself, what can an average slob do to stop the inevitable decline of modern society? Well don’t vote Republican, that’s for sure. They are the ones in bed with the rich and do their bidding. The way they are stopping President Obama from successfully passing a jobs bill or changing the budget to gain revenue from the rich and increasing social assistance to the poor is a pretty good indicator of what will happen with a majority government of Republicans.
People don’t want to pay taxes to support the heath and welfare of the poor. I can understand but listen; the majority of the poor are ethnic minorities in the United States. The repressed, the outcast from societies norm. They got there from days of Lincoln. Imagine if slavery was reintroduced to America. That is really how buying and selling of slaves became so repulsive to the Yankee sense of right and wrong. When a slave got sick they were not creating revenue so getting a new slave would be a better idea than nurse maiding the sick one till he/she died. It just made economic good sense.
With Christmas coming there are more Eboneser Scrooges out there than ever.
People in general are very confused by the definitions of fair and equal. They are not interchangeable terms. Equal means everyone gets the same treatment. Fair means everyone gets what they NEED. It is equal to have everyone pay the same percentage of taxes but not necessarily fair. Some people feel it is only fair to have everyone pay equal taxes and other feel it is fair to ensure that everyone has a certain minimum standard of living. I am someone who grew up in the bottom 50%. I received free lunch at school and significant grants from the government to help with college. I also had many student loans. I am now in the top 5% of wage earners and I can tell you that people in the bottom 50 % often work as hard if not harder than those in the top 5%. There are a few people who live on welfare their entire life and do have a sense of entitlement but that is NOT the feeling for the majority of the bottom 50%. Most of them work hard and do work multiple jobs when they can, but unlike most of those in the top 50%, they do not get paid if they are sick. They do not have sick days and never get more than 2 weeks of vacation. Those in the top 5% typically get more vacation days the longer they work at a company. I know my company does give me sick day but rather tell me that if I am sick, please do not come in and I still get paid. I only have to worry if I am out for more than 30 days and then I get short term disability 100%pay. When my parents got sick, we had no money. We could not afford medical treatment that was recommended (like having my tonsils removed). I am now able to afford to pay for treatment for myself for a rare disease. My sister has the same problem but is in the bottom 50% and can not afford treatment. For me it costs $225/month but the insurance she has working that bottom 50% job covers far less and it would cost her$1200/month for the same treatment. That is nearly her entire salary.
I am in the top 5% and have no problem with paying my fair share, not my equal share.
What I haven’t really seen addressed is a comparison of the relative benefit from the taxes paid by those who pay them. In particular, I’d like to see a description of all the veritably “hidden” benefits of government services, etc.
For example, traditional welfare programs such as food assistance and Medicaid are pretty obvious (and that is why we tend to hear about it).
But what about others that are not so easy to see?
We all drive on roads but many of the poor don’t use because they don’t have vehicles. Yes, roads are paid for in part by taxes on fuel but they are funded in many other ways, too. Commercial vehicles have an disproportionately negative effect on wear and tear on roads but don’t pay the proportion of taxes to cover those costs. It is not the very poor who avail themselves of the civil legal system in this country and while fees offset these costs, they are still largely taxpayer supported.
I think we should separate these types of societal benefits in our discussions and realize that we ALL benefit from societal contributions and that those designed for the poor are really only there to help ensure a minimally humane existence.
Yes, some people abuse it just as some people abuse the tax system.
But if we’re talking about people who are benefiting from social programs to scratch out that minimal existence, I am less inclined to want to scrutinize every dollar they spend (or misspend) and am more interested in those who have made their fortunes from the government trough through government contracts, etc.
The benefits decline precipitously the more taxes you pay. Do you think someone making $500,000 a year and pays $200,000 in taxes gets 70X the benefit of someone making $30,000 a year and paying $3,000 in Federal taxes?
Hell no. It’s called theft by the government.
A road is a road and a public library is a public library.
This guys math is wrong. His logic is wrong. And his attitude is wrong. On top of that he attacked another responder for explaing a difficult situation involving raising a child. People like financial samuri are what is wrong with this country. He obviously has no idea what financial hardship is and he is completely devoid of moral value. I have worked very hard my entire life often having two or three jobs at once working 18 hour days and have never made more than 22000 a year. I have never had the opportunity to go to college and moving was not a realistic option either. I am now supporting a family of three off of a 9 dollar an hour job. I can’t even buy a canned soda with the bills that I have and we cannot afford to move. There are no job opportunities and we are not being wasteful with our money. Just rent and electricity alone takes all of my income. The only way financial samurai’s statistics are right is if you are already born into an american household that is in good financial order. Without debit in a good area and able to help out with college.
Step one is to stop digging if you find yourself to be in a hole. Step two is to really look yourself in the mirror and evaluate what are the things you can improve about yourself (unless you think you are perfect), and figure out how to get better. I tell myself I am nobody every single day, so I don’t lose the hunger to fight.
You can blame statistics, or you can blame yourself and change.
Fight on brother. Never surrender. We live in America, where anything is possible.
Also, it always AMAZES me when conservatives tell you to just shut up and start your own business, lol ,sure, with what money? That is taking a HUGE chance, most would need loans to do so AND not everyone is going to be “business wise”, it is just not going to happen. Also, the whole abortion issue is finished, ok? It is a legal procedure, just get the hell over it already. Before it was legal, women died. Making it illegal will only cause the deaths of more women as they will not stop getting the abortions. There are 7 billion people in this world already, do we really need anymore unwanted ones? Population is a huge problem. Can you imagine if all those unwanted kids were here? There are no jobs as it is, and with the conservatives anti jobs policies, it is only going to get worse. I will finish now, because fighting with a conservative is just a waste of time, only see in b/w One more thing, stop tooting your horns about your income. My husband and I made 175k last year, we got lucky, even I could admit to that. Lots of people who work hard did not get so lucky, can’t stand people who stand on a freaking pedestal judging others. Also, you never know when you may lose that $, I have seen it happen, don’t think you are above it.
It costs me $12 a YEAR to register the domain of this site, and $300 a year for server the first year. I’m sure you can come up with $313 a year with your 175K salary.
If you never try, you will never win, and yes you are right, you will never lose.
The best is when people make $175,000 a year and sit on a high horse and go against capitalism.
It is even funnier to watch these ultra rich actors talk against capitalism with their 40 million dollars
Multi-millionaires Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon and Kanye West wisely milked the 99% Occupy everything crowd. I wonder if the crowd knows they’ve been used?
Heck your doing better than me and I started my own bussiness with 20k borrowed.
I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again, I started in my industry and for the first 6 months earned ZERO. I lost my apartment and moved onto my mom’s couch. I could have gotten a paltry hourly job but I dug my heals in and got it done. Now I’m quite comfortable. Had nothing AND I MEAN NOTHING to do with luck. Luck is gold falling out of the sky which it does not. Sure, you can be in the right place at the right time but you have to DO SOMETHING with it which takes more effort than luck. You want to help people? Donate your time and money! Don’t have time? Guess you missed out on that “luck” ’cause that time is spent doing other things.
Prior to my current career I was a $5/hr plus tiny commission TELEMARKETER. I took my SKILL that I worked very hard to develop and started my own brokerage. Took NO money to do and I charged $35 AN HOUR up front in 100 hour blocks. I personally serviced 50 hours a week so all on my own I earned 7k a month. 23 years old in 1995 making 7k/month. My overhead? A phone. There was no luck involved. It was a lot of hard work and more time than most people care to spend.
And the abortion issue? There will ALWAYS be people that are okay with it and are not okay with it. If you don’t know how it all came about, you’ll see Margaret Sanger as a “hero” of some sort when in reality, the negro project was all about keeping the “less desirables” from breeding and it was put in front of them as your “choice” or “right”.
My aunt was murdered while she was pregnant and the man that did it is serving 2 life sentences for 2 counts of murder 1. How is that possible? According to you, he only killed ONE person! That baby didn’t have any right to live, or any rights at all! So how is this man serving time for killing something that had less rights than a delta smelt? WHAT INJUSTICE!!!!
When obama’s policies started coming down the pike it was going to GREATLY impact my business so in order to stay in business I had to make some minor adjustments. No one is paid hourly anymore, everyone is a 1099. I lost 4 people and 3 came back. Turns out that 60k a year for around 30 hours is pretty damned good. And if they want to make more, they can either work longer/harder/smarter. It’s up to them. It’s amazing what happens to someone when they take control of their own destiny, and no matter how hard you try or how much you want to believe it, hourly pay doesn’t give you that unless you are smart with the money you DO get to take home.
Last year I conducted my own experiment. I put an ad out to hire and offered people 20% more than what they were getting on their unemployment checks. Not one person bothered to ask if they could be promoted, get a raise, get commission… nothing. I offered the job to 14 people and not one of them took it. I was willing to pay out of my pocket 20% more than they were getting from the govt without expecting any production for the first 90 days. No one took the job. No one.
So please, don’t tell me that people are wanting jobs. What I’ve found in REAL life experience is that people want the jobs they want for what they THINK they’re worth. And surprise people! You (and your house that you paid too much for) are only worth what someone is willing to pay.
And p.s. I moved to the east coast from a tiny beach town in orange county, CA where the average price of a home is 1.2 million dollars. I know about how expensive things can be. And no, I didn’t get some jumbo sub prime loan to keep up with the kardashians like most people in the country opted for.
I started biting my nails just when I started reading the BS spewing from the person who wrote this article. Conservative policies have never worked, not during the times of herbert hoover and certainly not now. Also the post above “claiming” taxing the rich hurts the country, lol, NOT true the exact opposite. Read up on history. Also claiming lower income earners are lazy is also a crock of you know what. My husband and I are in the 5% as well, but live in an area that is expensive(long island) I have never had a problem with my tax dollars going to people that need it. My husband got really lucky to make good money. A lot of it has to do with luck. I am sick of those on the right calling low income workers lazy. I guess a person working 12 hours in mcdonalds is lazy too, right? These days people with college education are not landing good jobs these days. During the recession, most of us have sacraficed but people like me BIL who works for UBS bank has made out. Why are we not asking them to make the sacrafice as well? He is most certainly NOT paying what he should be and people like him have sacraficed NOTHING! Time to change that. Seems only the middle and lower classes sacrafice, rich NOTHING, greed, greed, greed. With the income they make, they need to pay out more
True I just want to sit at home and get my check and play video games…Tax all the rich till they bleed
You got “lucky” and make good money? So you do a job that SHOULD pay … say $10 an hour but got “lucky” and found someone to pay you more than you’re worth? I don’t know anyone that truely considers themselves “lucky” on their earnings unless they won the lottery and invested it.
I’ve never heard someone on “the right” call anyone low income lazy. I’ve heard liberals SAY that they call them that but have never actually heard it come out of a mouth for myself. What I do know is that ingenuity is lost because it is taxed to death. Hillary Clinton was in Pakistan and said, “We (the USA) tax everything that moves”.
Hope you didnt have a nervous breakdown with your Top 5% income living in Long Island.
Nobody said people who make $10 at McDonalds are lazy. Where is that written in the article? I worked at McDonald’s for $3.25 an hour and was the best damn egg mcmuffin maker in the restaurant!
@Phil
Actually YES!!!! We were in the lower income % and HATED it. We hated not being able to pay bills, travel etc. So we worked 70+ hours a week…used our tax $$ to start a small inhome business, learned how to advertise and our business took off. Our taxes were only 3K and most “poor” people EASILY (with kids) get 6-10k back a YEAR in taxes. BUt what do they do with it all? WASTE on a TV’s and crap they don’t need. YOU and anyone can do it if you are motivated and keep at it. have you ever seen Persuit of happiness? He made it…we’re FINALLy making it. We are now in the top 15%. Was it easy? heck NO! Was it worth it? You bet!!!!
Nice job making it! That sounds pretty rational to me: Hating being poor, so you became rich.
Do you really have a problem with someone like “The Situation” who made 4mm last year paying 40% in taxes. I sure don’t.
I know ‘good family’ and ‘dropped out of school’ don’t go well together however my parents were awesome i just was a bad boy for about 10 years.
I am fortunate to come from a good family. I was raised well. I dropped out of high school, never went to college, but i was still smart, worked hard and now i run my own internet marketing business that puts me in the top 10-15% every year.
Knowing all this i still think that we are a society. Sometimes the rich have to help the poor. Sometimes the ones with have to help the ones without.
I have no problem paying my taxes, because as a business owner, i have tons of loop holes and and an good accountant that helps me pay the very least possible (about $3000 last year). Just like there are some poor that abuse a system that gives them the very minimum to survive. There are just as many, and most likely more well off people who abuse the same system to make more money and not have to pay their share.
We lost close to 3mm jobs last year and shipped the same amount over seas. This is a world economy and world market. As a Americans we no longer make ANYTHING, we create nothing. The people with money don’t invest in making a better car, or a better VCR. They take their money and use splits, derivatives and other investment tools to make more money all that the sake of the lower class creating a large economic gap. That is how its done now, and we must tax them to get back in the economy that which they no longer contribute as they did decades before.
Marc, you are correct. This is a WORLD economy and WORLD market!
We are competing with people who make less and are HUNGRIER than us. It’s time we realized this and stop feeling so entitled!
If you want to get ahead, work 80 hours a week and brainstorm some new ideas! If not, someone else will eat your lunch and dinner.
The greeks are about to lose their country because they can no longer pay the intrest on the
loans the economic hit men forced on them. If the economic hit men fail to force countries to take loans so big they could never repay them, such as Saddam Hussein, then we send in the Jackles to overthrow the leaders or kill them. If that fails then we go to war. The G20 is now forcing Greece to take more loans only to delay the inevitable bankruptcy of that country. Of course some or all of that loan will be forgiven in exchange for allowing US military bases to be placed in their country.
I only have one final thing to say. My grandfather came here from Ireland when he was 8 and spoke zero english. (very strange accent) He used to say “find a need and fill it”. He started a welding company, then expanded to selling welding supplies, then to selling gas, then to manufacturing the gas and now there are 14 retail stores in central California.
FIND A NEED AND FILL IT DAMMIT!
For a man to be homeless all he needs is a box.
For a man to become a billionaire he needs: schools, roads, trains, airports, hospitals, armies, laws, et.
Obviously, America needs billionaires to grow and prosper. So what comes first: the chicken or the egg?
Just do me one favor: stop feeling sorry for the billionaire.
Nobody is feeling sorry for the billionaire. It’s those who are the working top 1% (wages from W2) who are getting screwed the most.
tax bracket should be what it was in the 50’s..the rich don’t pay nearly as much as they should. 90%…thats right 90%
great idea! But taxing someone 90% is going to give them as much as YOU get which is no motivation to bust ass and earn that much. And it’s been PROVEN that the more you tax the rich the less revenue the country gets. The trick is to expand the tax base and have everyone working and paying their FAIR share. I pay quite a lot in taxes but I do not receive ANYTHING from my government. My roads, plowing, parks and rec, etc are all paid by my state taxes. The only thing the federal govt gives me is defense and I’m certainly not receiving more of that than the next guy.
It boils down to someone being pissed off that someone else is making more money than you. You’re bitter. When I was younger I used to ASK the wealthy how they did it rather than being mad that I was in a position that wouldn’t pay me what they made. And now, I am quite comfortable because I listened to them. 85% of the millionaires in this country started with nothing.
We should get RID of the corporate tax all together. Unfortunately you can’t go back to the 50s (don’t you democrats always accuse republicans of wanting to live in leave it to beaver’s house?). We’re in a global economy now thanks to NAFTA and GAT. If we tax people more and more, they are now free to walk away and take their money and jobs with them. I’d rather have no corporate taxes and create 50 million jobs than high taxes with negative job growth that we haven’t seen since Hoover. I’d gladly say NO corporate tax if a corporation would move it’s (let’s say in the case of G.E.) x-ray division BACK to the USA and dole out 10k jobs. If we had no corporate tax, no one else in the world would be able to compete with that and every business in the world would be breaking their necks to open up shop here.
We even had job growth DURING the “great depression”!!!!!!!
No one ever paid 90% taxes. That is one of the biggest exaggerations ever. We have a graduated tax system, so everyone pays the same amount (10%) for the first $8500 earned (17k if filed jointly). If you make more than $8500, then anything above 8500 is taxed in the next bracket, at 15% (up to $34,500 for individuals, 69k joint). So if you make 10k per year, then 8500 will be taxed at 10% and the remaining 1500 will be taxed at 15%. It is tiered like that all the way to 379k, and if you are lucky enough to make that (AGI–NOT gross), then you pay 35% on any money ABOVE 379k. Even though a person making that much would be in the 35% tax bracket, that person would NOT be paying 35% of his or her income in taxes.
Then there are deductions, 401k contributions, FSAs, HSAs, etc….all ways of whittling down your AGI. Of course, these things typically benefit the wealthy the most, since those are people in the best position to take advantage of tax breaks (a person living paycheck to paycheck may struggle to put away 10% for retirement, whereas someone with a lot of disposable income doesn’t really miss the money that much). So, a person with an AGI of 379k is probably earning something closer to 450-500k, though I know it would vary vastly from individual to individual and family to family.
When Reagan lowered taxes, the upper brackets were pushing 90%, and I would agree that that’s excessive. But no one was ever paying 90% of their income in taxes. It’s a disingenuous argument to suggest they were.
I agree with getting rid of corporate taxes, they are just a business expense. Just tax the ultra rich on their personal income at a fair rate; not at the meager capital gains tax rate we have today (to benefit the ultra rich). Reagan recognized this and when he needed to raise taxes, he taxed the ultra rich too. Under Clinton, the capital gains tax was cut, and cut further under Bush II. You need to wonder if these two guys work for the same people.
sure! why not! 80% of capital gains income is held by people making 100k or less! Great idea! Capital gains tax is NOT income tax. They are 2 different taxes and capital gains tax is actually double taxation anyway! Taxing capital gains makes it impossible to recoup the money you handed (or were forced to hand) to the government.
No one is suggesting that the “ultra rich” shouldn’t pay taxes. What people have a problem with is that they are being told they should pay their “fair share” which falls far from actually being fair.
And the “rich” that don’t want to pay MORE taxes have a very valid arguement. Why give (or be forced to give) more money to poor stewards? You can tax the “top 1%” 100% and it wouldn’t make a dent in our deficit, much less debt. But it would kill any hopes for anyone else to ever make a living OR become wealthy at some point. For the first time in history our debt has exceeded our GDP. Tax us ALL 100% and, aside from killing any economy that we have left, we’ll still be in debt and then have to means of paying what is left.
and wonder if these 2 guys work for the same guy??? LMFAO YOU WONDER??? I can remember when people would look at me like I’ve got 3 heads when “new world order” came out of my mouth. It’s like they didn’t get the memo that Bush 1 sent out.. or somehow weren’t listening to that speech!
Something else that needs to be pointed out is that people complain about corporations/rich having so much control over the government. Well, they pay the bill! They have MORE skin in the game. I find that the more I pay in taxes the more concerned I am about where the money goes. What is it about people that makes them think they can pay nothing, get checks from the govt and then have any valid claim to how it’s run?
Perhaps capital gains are held to a large degree by people who are not utra-rich. However, I would venture that these holdings are in retirement accounts that will be tax at regular income tax rates when withdrawn, not at the lower capital gains tax. So, how can anyone think for a second that a low capital gains tax is nothing more than a tax break for the ultra rich and merely a bone for anyone else who might be fortunate enough to have some stock outside of their retirement account. What we have today is an inverted tax system where the ultra – rich pay less than the the 99th percentile at 380,000K. This is clearly unfair to those who work and pay taxes at higher rates (like the other top half of wage earners. I wish that someday, I too can earn so much money that my average tax rate drops to 18 percent.
Not sure someone making less than 33k per year can just pack up and move to San Francisco bay area! Especially if they have children. Sounds like you are a bit out of touch. We make over 100k per year, and it would be a very difficult move for us financially!
It takes less than 7 days by bus to move cross country vs 3 months for settlers who did it 300 yrs ago. The Internet also helps you never have to move either.
Be resourceful. Yes, your 100k isn’t a lot, and we feel your pain, but you can make more if you want.
Danielle, once upon a time people moved to where the work was. They didn’t consider or CARE if little Bobby was going to have to leave his little league team. Want to know why people become “rich”? Because they are WILLING to do things that will get them there. They will take a loss on a job to earn someone’s business. They will work 60 hours a week and sacrifice something else with that time. They will NOT buy that flat screen TV and get some gold or silver instead. If your priority is comfort, then you need to decide WHEN you want to be comfortable and at what cost. Do you want to work hard now while you CAN or do you want to stress out when you’re 80 praying that your SS govt check is going to come?
I’ve moved several times. Left my friends and family. Sure, I’d rather be in California on my beach in the sun drinking coronas but right NOW I have to live in the land that time forgot so that when I go back there I do not need to worry.
The problem is people aren’t willing to do what they need to do to get ahead. Sometimes it hurts! But it doesn’t hurt for that long.
First of all, I’m more than satisfied with my 100k, thank you very much. We live in a large home in a nice neighborhood, send our kids to a great private school, I stay home with my kids, we vacation several times a year. I am living a very comfortable and happy life. Just shows how out of touch YOU are if you think 100 k isn’t enough to be comfortable on. If I wanted more money I’d go back to work. It’s as simple as that for me, but I have a graduate degree and a license to practice law.
My fight is not for people like me, who are indeed very comfortable. It is for the countless individuals and families I have worked with who struggle more than I can ever imagine. I devoted several years of my legal career trying to help them. For some of them I saw hope. But for many of them I couldn’t imagine a way out of their situation, no matter how hard I tried. Many of these were hard working individuals who worked 2 or more jobs just to get by. It really is depressing, and I am not the kind of person who can simply say “f- them, at least I live well.”
Moving, for them, is not about having to leave their child’s little league team. Most of them don’t have the time or money to participate in things like that anyway. Many of them don’t have computers or Internet, so FS’s argument that anyone can work from anywhere fails.
Cool. How much have you donated to families in need and how much time have you volunteered this year?
In response to FS’s comment below:
No idea how much time or money I have donated this year. I don’t keep track every time I donate a pack of diapers or a can of food or a jar of peanut butter. We just finished a box for operation Christmas child–probably $30 or so, but since it’s coming out of disposable income, I don’t really know. My husband keeps track of the weekly contributions we make to our church, and the monthly contributions we make to our homeless shelter.
No idea how much volunteer time either–that varies from week to week and even month to month, depending on what is going on in my personal life. I have a two year old who goes to daycare two mornings each week, and the rest of the time she is with me. I just finished up a pro bono case that probably took 40-50 hours. Others I have done took considerably more. I do what I can, and whe mynchildren are older I will do more. They are my priority right now.
But you’re not really interested in what I’ve done, nor am I really interested in advertising it. You were just hoping to prove a point.
Feel free to have the last word–on this or any other argument I’ve posted. We will never change each others mind’s taking jabs back and forth, so it’s really just a waste of time. I’d rather play Memory with my kids.
and there are plenty of people that are more than satisfied with the amount of hours they work but not with the money.. and will not do anything to change their situation. I have heard at LEAST a dozen times “I can’t do that” or “I wouldn’t want to do that” or “I’d be no good at that”. I’ve attempted to hire AT LEAST a dozen people that have told me those things but yet have made no attempt at doing what I do. Everyone that works for me works no more than 30 a week and no one is pacing under 60k. I don’t dictate their hours or how many hours they are to work and they are ALL on commission. You earn what you are worth. But seriously, how many people do you know that wouldn’t DREAM of not getting paid to stand at the water cooler? I run into them every single day.
And trust this, NO ONE earning 30k a year would agree that moving would be financially difficult for YOU. To them, you are RICH.
Well said Brooke! Go to where the opportunities are. It’s so backward that people thing opportunities will just come to them!
All I know is I work 52-60 hours a week and I make 35000.00 a year. I am a single parent and get no support from the government and I have a hard time making ends meet. I rent and do very little for entertainment and am paycheck to paycheck and I pay 736 a month in federal and local taxes. So I pay right at 10000 a year in taxes and struggle daily living and supporting my children. So I feel the poor pay their fair share of taxes. The problem is the government gives welfare with no restrictions. I believe a person should be required to work at least 20 hrs. or more to get help and have to pass drug/alcohol tests to get the thousands of dollars a year in help. I don’t care to have my taxes help someone if they are making an effort to help themselves. But the people who don’t work and get subsided rent and foodstamps and insurance and they do nothing that’s what’s not fair. But if you work you pay taxes so instead of fighting over that why not fight to stop bums from getting everything handed to them. If you are trying to get a head you get no help but if your willing to do nothing for yourself then our government will give you anything? That’s our problem in America and our other problem is NAFTA.
Darek, thanks for your thoughts. I really hope at the end of the year, you get a nice tax refund, b/c paying an effective 30% of your 35K/year income sounds high. Hope you get that $1,000/child/year tax credit.
it should be noted that the IRS statistics on AGI are for individuals, not households, and don’t include capital gains or dividends, and that the threshold for the top 1% is about $380k per year, while the top 0.1% of individuals earn over 1.4 million a year and represent less than 150,000 people. Wealth consolidation is higher in America today than it was in 1929. So many people are passionate about defending the ‘fairness’ to this small, super rich sector of the population. Personally, I’d let the super rich and their wide array of staff do the defense work. Worry about what taxes the top 1% pays when you join their illustrious ranks. In the meantime, do a reality check on what taxes the bottom 50% pay – AGI doesn’t count the PAYROLL TAX. And just to get really real, taxes don’t just go down a big toilet. They pay for so much – we all drive on roads, for example, right? None of us are so righteous because we have our own roads? Or our own armies? No bombs whistling outside my windows, thanks. Taxes pay for police and fire departments, coast guard and air traffic control, public schools, the massive system of international customs, trade, and immigration, oversight for everything from food to finances, social service programs that keep starving kids out of doorways and streets (soooo annoying when I’m trying to drive through in my Land Rover)…the list is endless, and all American citizens reap the benefits of tax dollars at work every day of our lives, just through the normalcy of a country with functioning statehood. I mean, is anyone really longing for SF to look like more like Mumbai? I’m glad to pay my taxes, and I am bumping pretty close to the top 1%. I’m glad because I’m a patriot, and I do not expect to get government services for free and do not begrudge helping others….jeeze…someone who thought that way would have a serious entitlement attitude.
I second that! Why don’t more people realize that (1) taxes really aren’t the worst thing to have to pay–they fund our roads, for one thing, and (2) they aren’t the top 1%! I have a few friends who would fall in the top 1% (at least based on this chart) and it makes sense that they would want to lower their taxes. But so many people are voting against their own best interest and don’t even realize it!
People who say taxes “aren’t the worst thing” are the one’s who aren’t being asked to pay more taxes, and who already pay most of the taxes already.
I don’t mind tax increases if you pay for it and I don’t! That’s the logic here.
This is a great article!!! But you have to read between the lines. I learned that the largest income in the U.S. makes $1,031,512,000,000 TAX FREE!!! Our government brings this much in for taxes and still is asking for more!!! This just confirms my belief that if you are not competent enough to balance your budget, you should not be re-elected (for both liberals and conservatives). STOP ASKING FOR MORE FROM THE POOR, THE MIDDLE CLASS, AND THE RICH!!! We can tax any of these three groups more and it will not matter if our government continues to out spend it’s own budget and borrow from other countries.
I am trying to figure out how all these people are claiming that working minimum wage can get you by. Have you ever actually done it? Not all states have a comfy $10 minimum.
I work two minimum wage jobs in NY because no one is hiring. Even minimum wage jobs here are far and few between. I was once told by McDonalds that since I have college experience, I was overqualified(wtf?!) for the job and they wouldn’t hire me. I have had to choose between paying rent or eating. My credit score has plummeted since I haven’t been able to keep up with payments on my student loans.
Jobs are so scarce that I have seen people apply to hundreds of jobs (even mall, minimum wage ones) in their town and surrounding areas and receive no offer for an interview.
Then, when people do manage to get hired, even if people wanted to work 40 and 60 hours a week, not every job is willing to hand that out. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen someone get hired and start working at 30 hours a week, only to have their hours slowly dwindled down to the point it where it would cost them more money in gas than what they actually earn.
Minimum wage in NY: $7.35
40 hours a week: $294
Then cut out for taxes.
Actually earnings: around $200 a week.
That wouldn’t be bad, but this is what most people are experiencing:
Minimum Wage: $7.35
25 hours a week (since thats all they can get): $183.75
Actual earnings: about $135 a week
Actual earnings per month: $540
Add a second job at minimum wage.
But you can only get 15 hours that don’t interfere with your other job: $110.25
Actual earnings: around $90
Per month: $360
Total: $900 per month
Now the breakdown (based on someone living by themselves):
Rent: $595
Utilities: $45
Electric: $50
Food: $100
Gas: $100
TOTAL: $890
Leaving you with an extra $20 a month.
I don’t know about you but that isn’t much to go off of, say for: Car insurance, emergency car repairs, doctors visits (since you don’t get health care or insurance at part time hours). And god help you if you have a child or pet to take care of.
My father would be classified in the “top 10%” bracket of these statistics.
But I vividly remember my family struggling with debt and bills.
I remember having to help my mother scrounge up nickles and dimes to put gas in the gastank. How we couldn’t afford to eat healthy. And how we were always worried about heating the house during the winter.
There is something very wrong with this economy when someone has to break their back working at minimum wage (and even above!) to barely survive while fat cats and corporations get off without paying taxes. And do you know how degrading it feels to work at minimum wage or food service when you busted ass in college and have dreams you can’t pursue? Then tack on the mental and physical exhaustion from working in customer service and it is in no way a “comfortable way of living”.
Fuck minimum wage.
Fuck this backwards economy.
And fuck the 1%.
I’m surprised you pay 30% of your income to taxes earning minimum wage. You sure about this?
I don’t think people with minimum wage jobs have cars and pay car insurance. Isn’t that kinda a disconnect?
Why not just start an online business for $20 bucks a year? It costs $12 to get a URL.
You don’t think people with minimum wage jobs have cars? Did I read that right.
Goes to show you how out of touch you are.
I don’t believe the 30% tax rate for
minimun wage either unless you are using payroll deductions, then it sounds
about right. You should get all or most of your fed taxs back at the end of the
year, but not state, or local taxes, which keep going up because there is less
money coming from the fed.
When I worked minimum wage I didn’t have a car. You know why? Because I could t afford a car! None of my min wage friends had cars too.
How do you afford a car if you earn min wage? I believe one needs to make 10 times the value or the car to justify buying that car. So if you make $20k, the most you should buy is a 2k car. Hence, why bother wasting this money?
I take the bus.
Wow, it must be awesome to live in a city where you have public transportation. I know that we do not! We do have a taxi service, but it is located 37 miles away- imagine those charges when you’re living on minimum wage at a max of 27 hours a week!
My office is located 15 miles away. There is only one way to get there: by car. We do not have carpooling groups here, meaning unless you want to bike to work 30 miles every day, round trip, then the only other option is to get your own car. And with your own car, comes your own gas bill, and your own car insurance bill.
In essence, the job it took me more than eight months to get costs me more than I get paid. But I would never leave it, since it is the ONLY job I’ve been able to land at all since I’ve gotten out of high school.
If only I had a bus, right?
You must live in a large city with good public transportation. I live in a small city that is the capital of a rural state. The lower income people I have worked with through my former job and through volunteer work would sometimes take the bus, but would often choose to walk 5 or more miles to wherever they were going because the bus system is so lousy. The ones living in the city had that option. But I have also worked with many individuals in rural areas and in smaller cities without any transportation system. For them public transportation isn’t even an option.
Public transportation, at least here, is largely funded by tax money. Every year it almost gets cut. And yet people want to cut taxes, which could effectively end the public transportation system, and then tell minimum wage earners to just take the bus! It doesn’t make sense.
San Francisco is expensive. At least we have pub transportation. At least living in a rural area is way cheaper for everything else.
What’s wrong with having people who use the bus, pay for the bus? I’m not following you on the taxes.
I don’t really care what the numbers from the government statistics are saying. What I care for is the numbers that I bring to my household, which will definitely affect our lives and my children’s future.
You sound like a real asshole. Plus, doesn’t it occur to you that, while one might make more money in SF than other places, you also pay about 50% in housing and other cost of living expenses. You are just plain dumb. Plus, it’s ridiculous to think that everyone should be working 60 hours a week, when 40 hours is the standard work week in all industries, and other countries get along just fine with even less than that. Fact is that the 40 hours is just in place to control people and keep them from looking up to see that they are being exploited AND NO ONE does even 40 hours of work a week. it’s just not possible to sustain that long. check out the water cooler, lunch and break area, the use of the Internet for non work purposes and email, and you can see that at most 4 hours of work is actually done a day and the rest wasted because we just HAVE to be there. You are an idiot. AND, a whiner. You sound pissed off that you have to work so much, also.
Fight for equality Stacie. Discrimination is wrong. You’ve got to fix your entitlement attitude, otherwise you’ll never get ahead.
Stacie,
I don’t take quite as strict of view as the author (I believe that you shouldn’t tax poverty level earners) but we all have our opinions which are based on our situation. No one way is right for everyone. But I do firmly agree with his point of working more than your standard 40 hour week if you want to get ahead. He didn’t say you should be FORCED to work more than 40 hours…. just don’t complain that the person who does sacrifice a part of their life by working harder than most needs to pay more taxes than they do. I was a high school dropout making minimum wage with no help from anyone and it sucked! I learned early on that if I worked harder than anyone around me I would then be rewarded by raises that were way above average. I kept that going for a while and made it up into the top 5%. Two years ago, with the worst economy I’ve seen in my lifetime, I decided that I no longer wanted to depend on working for large companies as I didn’t feel secure. I started a business with some other co-workers (cost a lot of time and money). Business is good an I’m almost earning what I did before but now have a chance to be in the top 3% in the next 2-3 years. I WORKED MY A$$ OFF but am now doing it from home so I can always be close to my family. My point is this…. there’s absolutely nothing wrong with working 40 hours a week, taking your 1 hour lunch, taking your 10 minute breaks, and clocking out at exactly 5:00. Just don’t tell me that I need to pay more taxes because I’m working hard at 6:00 when you’re sitting on the couch with a beer in your hand.
BTW… in another year I’ll be dropping my hours down to 30 per week so I can enjoy the rewards of all my hard work.
Since when was making 33k or less poverty? Of course if someone is in poverty, I’m not askig them to pay more or perhaps any federL taxes. But if you are a single person and earning 15-20k+ a year, you should contribute some federal income taxes, even if it is just $25 a month! $0 is not acceptable, especially since we should give more than we take.
Other than that, I congratulate you for your success and understanding that anybody who only works 40 hours a week and complains is completely delusional!
You worked your ass off eh and soon you’ll be working 30 hrs a week? Hummmm, sounds like you’ll retire before your 40 hr a week counter part. Probably a lot more in the bank too while your counter part works for another 20 years or so. Who will be sitting on the couch then eh? I’ll bet Mr. 40hrs a week will be wondering why you have such a good life then. You will say you earned it. How, by selling to people like him or hiring people like him. Without those 40 hr people you would have nothing. I suppose you think you don’t owe them anything. You probably feel that you don’t owe Democracy and Freedom anything as well. Well keep you money for yourself like the rich say they want to and see if anything happens to America or Democracy. You get what you pay for. Ever heard that expression? Probably don’t care.
Mark,
I appreciate the insults. So here’s what I understand from your post:
You believe I’m anti-American and don’t care about democracy or people who work 40 hours a week. Does that about sum it up?
My perspective:
I’m creating those 40 hour a week jobs. The lowest salary in our company is 55k. We provide medical and dental care to all employees at no cost to them. We sell our product to small businesses to better help them. I find it strange that you seem to be against this. Doesn’t this freedom that you throw out there apply to EVERYONE… the freedom for people like myself to be rewarded for working hard and being creative. I think it’s time you come out of the closet. You like to talk about America, Democracy, and Freedom but your opinions better match one that prefers a Socialist government. You state that I probably don’t care but I do pay A LOT in taxes to help our great country. How about you?
And by the way, you’re also wrong that I’ll retire before my 40 hour a week counter part. I enjoy being creative in my field and also enjoy coming to work. I just prefer to spend more time with my family and my hard work is going to allow me to accomplish this.
My point is simple and should have been easily picked up by someone as creative and out of the closet like yourself. (why you had to infer I was in the closet kind of sets the tone here) Anyone who wants to work for you for 40 hrs I suspect works equally as hard as you do during those 40 hrs. Just because they decide to end work after 40 hrs does not devalue the amount done in those 40 hrs.
You said “Just don’t tell me that I need to pay more taxes because I’m working hard at 6:00 when you’re sitting on the couch with a beer in your hand.” To infer that that there is alcohol involved would be an insult for many for one thing. The other point is that for every employee that you hire increases the companies net worth. Their hard work gains your company and they don’t keep any of that gain except maybe there job itself. The company does gain and if you decide to sell it someday that increase goes into your pocket and the shareholders pocket.
Then you say ” I find it strange that you seem to be against this.” Why would anyone be against this? That is what the free market society is all about. Bully for you and all that you do. I think it is great that you have the initiative and drive to help so many along with helping America. My whole point is that power and wealth comes the responsibility to pay to your great county it’s fair share. The country is owed a debt for providing a free market society where someone like yourself can gain great favour, wealth and social standing. We are indebted to Lady Liberty for not asking more of us. Many so-called free market driven societies are actually driven by fear. Many back door or under the table deals are run in those counties using prostitutes and threats of violence to accomplish their drive for power and wealth. How would you like it if the mob started breathing down your neck forcing your hand to use their inferior materials or to sell at a lower price to specific clients? Complaining in those 3rd world countries to the police could get you killed or worse since so many are corrupt to the highest levels. Paying bribes to city officials is common place. Many end up in prison for not doing as they are told. Pay your taxes and be grateful that you must pay more than before. When Ronald Regan took office he lowered taxes for the wealthy. Be grateful that tax levels don’t go back to that. Consider that you do get what you pay for, your freedom!
One more thing, your hard work creates something that is yours. I can understand this. I have hobbies that help me create something nice, better than it was before and it is mine. Pride comes from that and it is fun. So when you said ” And by the way, you’re also wrong that I’ll retire before my 40 hour a week counter part. I enjoy being creative in my field and also enjoy coming to work.” This just tells me your retirement is being put off by choice. To compare that to your 40 hr/week counterpart is absurd since he/she works to eat and have a family. Ya, you do too but you also work for that 30 hr work week that is out of reach for most of your employees. If they cut back their hours to 30 then they would practically be on the bread line. So congratulations on all the options and rewards, hard work and “creativity” have provided you. You should be grateful enough to pay more for your taxes since you owe more to America than anyone at your company. This is not an insult to you sir. I would hold my head up high and expect respect from others for the role you play in America. I would thank you personally if I worked for you. All your employees are indebted to you and you are indebted to America. Your employees are also indebted to America for not having to work for slave wages which is also something that plagues 3rd world nations. Best of luck in your endeavours.
other countries aren’t getting along just fine with less than 40 hours. Or maybe you don’t realize that most of Europe is on fire every other day?
I also would like to know from where did Rush base his claim saying that earning 50,000 dlls puts you in the upper 10% of wage earners. I have been looking at wikipedia and 15% would be above 100,000 dlls.
How can $50K put you in the top 10% of wage earners, when the median household income is around $50-$55K?
Doesn’t make sense. My chart is what it is. Top 10% at $113,000 sounds about right.
What jumps out at me is that the column about the group share of tax payments does not add up to 100%! That means funny business as far as I am concerned. If the IRS really did make this table, the funny business may have originated there. In any case, we need better statistics before we make any policy decisions.
I also question the validity of the column on effective rates of tax payments based upon my own experience. I actually pay the top rate that is reported (23.27%) although I am not even close to earning the amount cited for the top 5%, to say nothing of the top 1% for which this rate is quoted. Something is seriously wrong with this information, folks.
Here’s an interesting article…
https://www.daveramsey.com/article/dear-occupy-wall-street/lifeandmoney_economy/
This does not take into account that within the top 1 % there is a huge range. The 99th percentile earner at 380 K is probably paying taxes at the top tax rate with their avg tax rate a bit lower. But the top 400 starts at income over 109 million and paid an avg tax rate of 18% (2008). So if you are lucky enough to be near the 99th percentile and living comfortably, you are still closer to the bottom than to the top of the income scale, and those above you, who make more than your lifetime earnings in a single year are paying less tax than you. Our capital gains tax system has created an inverted tax scale with ultra rich paying less tax.
Very well said Robert. I hope people realize this. $380,000 is a dime a dozen in big cities and mostly are wage workers.
It is truly those 400 income earners that the OWS and most Americans are upset over, somehow they think the 1% is those people, only. I, until, looking around, thought that the 400 was all that was considered to be in the 1%, as well.
However, those that are of what I’d consider poverty level (less than 1 or more family hh – $20,000/annually) should not be considered to be those with their hand outs, most of them don’t qualify for any ‘entitlements’, as everyone assumes. Until the HCR is in place, unless you’re what the Government considers poverty level. If you don’t fall within their guidelines, you don’t qualify, and if you do, it’s very minimal. At times, they may offer $10-$20 worth of aid for food, if you’re close to the cut off, or they may put the children on medical assistance, while not providing it to the parent(s). It’s not as cut and dry as people tend to think.
Supposedly, once the HCR is in place Medical Assistance will become available to those that fall within 300% above the guidelines. Until then, most are living only off of their small paychecks.
We all live on the planet together. We should conserve and share its resources. The distribution of wealth in OUR world is disgusting, something has to be done. We need to form a new system that is more fair and more sustainable.
Did you earn it? If not, do you still deserve it?
When I started in my industry I went 6 months without a paycheck. I lost my apartment, moved onto my mom’s couch and dug my heals in. Then I learned how to do my job WELL and did very well at it. One thing that I would marvel at in my office was that my colleages would laugh at me for the distances I would go to earn so little money. Well, while they were sitting in their offices earning NOTHING, I was driving 150 miles one way to earn $100 net. I would even go that far or more to net $20!!! They just didn’t get it. However, every month consistantly I had top production and that top production allowed me to leave that office and open one of my own. Should I have “shared” my commission with the others in the office because they didn’t have any? They didn’t want to get in the car! They didn’t want to leave their bubble for such a small amount. It just wasn’t worth their time.
Also, in school I had a piddly 3.2 GPA but there were plenty of kids/young adults that had a lower GPA. Should I have “shared” my grades? Is it FAIR that I understood something better than the guy/girl next to me in class while we both put in the same amount of time/effort? Is it FAIR that I put in more effort TO understand that subject than someone else?
Love it Brooke! Well done! Let them laugh all they want. You’re out there busting your butt to do something to make your situation better.
its all moot anyway….. those with their hands out have finally figured out how to vote themselves the money out of the treasury…. hope and (spare) change. What I don’t understand is how non achievers can have the gall to actually think its somehow owed to them like they earned it… by what? Being born? Well therein lies the fix…. instead of abortion vs. continued lifetime care costs down the road, lets just avoid both. Every responsible parent out there should be clamoring for some kind of parental reform where you need to show enough competence to even have a child much less not have it instantly be born into neglectful/abusive conditions in a country where 5 children under 5 are abused to death every day and infants are occasionally placed in a microwave. Don’t ask me how, I don’t have all the answers but until then, if you want fair, then fair is fair and a flat tax is just that…. be careful what you wish for. Great post btw FS