111–120 of 219 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, do you subsidize your siblings? I'm going to be in the same situation and I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing but I think I'm going to end up doing it.
That's a good way to get everyone to hate you.
Or do you mean they might resent you if you do that?
If $30,000 per year is "substandard" then the rest of the developed world must be positively impoverished: https://mises.org/wire/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden... . There's a very legitimate criticism to be made about the plight of the poor in the U.S. But the U.S. middle class has it better than almost everyone else in the world. They make a lot more money than in Europe, and pay far less taxes. (Indeed, the…
30,000 is far from a decent income considering people get gouged on health insurance, which effectively functions as another tax on their post-tax income. When you start adding in the costs of food, internet, phone, utilities etc the end result is much more dire. This is not even counting the fact that Americans work more for less, considering people in Sweden, your example, I guarantee you get far more time off, have more job security and considerably better benefits.
How much do Americans earn?
2015 data [1]: median household income was $52K. If you're white. If you're black, the median is $34K. So, only like, 1/3 less. Or if you're asian, the median is $72K.
2017 data [2]: median household income apparently jumps to $62k. If you're white it's $65k, black it's $40k, asian $81k.
Then the Social Security data (from 2013) shows the median net compensation for individuals is $28K. And according to tax data, the bottom 50% of taxpayers make less than $34K.
Since the poverty level for a family of 4 (in 2017) is $25k, that means a majority of families of 4 (which, again have to pay 4x for more food, clothing, transportation, education, and miscellaneous) have a bit more than subsistence level money.
2017 data [3]: Census claims the poverty level for a household of 1 is $12k. What? Who the fuck is living in America on $12k a year?
Adding up all the people making less than $15k comes to ~28% of Americans, or 92 million people, just above to below poverty level (SSA data for 2017 [5]). But Census poverty data [6] says only 12% are in poverty. There's a huge gap between the SSA's numbers of people and their net compensation, compared to the Census's formulation of how many people are in poverty. How is there a gap of 52 million people in calculating the poverty rate? Can someone point out what's going on?
GDP is also higher than median household income, which doesn't take inflation into account.
[1] http://www.mybudget360.com/how-much-do-americans-earn-in-201... [2] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/tables/p60/263... [3] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/tables/time-ser... [4] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-26... [5] https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2017 [6] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2018/demo/p60-26...
edit: in the Census report (https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...) they mention that you have to adjust all pre-2014 numbers by increasing them by 3.14 percent, due to changes in reporting....
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The authors write that "the incomes of the top 1% collectively made up 11% of national income in 1980, but now constitute above 20% of national income, while the 20% of US national income that was attributable to the bottom 50% in 1980 has fallen to just 12% today. Further, "while average pre-tax income for the bottom 50% has stagnated at around $16,000 since 1980, the top 1% has experienced 300% growth in their inc…
globalization only benefits the rich. They can arbitrage labor and then keep the difference in profit. The supposed lowering of cost to make up for job loss and wage reduction didn't happen
Before you were the best artist / programmer / chef in your small town. Today you or your company sells to the world. #1 / #2 takes most/all, everyone else loses.
Sorry but that's just the nature of the world today.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are a good person. Money is really good to keep separate though at least for many people I think. I've done similar things like loaned my older brother enough to get through nursing school as he was stocking at Target at 33 and I thought this was a better path. I was better off then but not well off and this cause some strains. When he was doing better it was hard to get him to pay back anything even at 0% intere…
General advice: treat any “loans” to family or close friends like gifts. Once you hand the money over, imagine it is gone forever. Then if the loan is paid back, you will be happily surprised. But if it’s not you won’t be bitter about it, and it won’t ruin your relationship. Corollary: don’t lend your family members an amount of money that would cause you hardship if it’s not paid back. (Obviously extreme circumstanc…
If $30,000 per year is "substandard" then the rest of the developed world must be positively impoverished: https://mises.org/wire/when-it-comes-household-income-sweden... . There's a very legitimate criticism to be made about the plight of the poor in the U.S. But the U.S. middle class has it better than almost everyone else in the world. They make a lot more money than in Europe, and pay far less taxes. (Indeed, the…
This is remarkably ignorant of the actual circumstances that lower-class Americans have to deal with, especially when you share almost improbable statistics that are completely out of touch with reality. 30,000 is far from a decent income considering people get gouged on health insurance, which effectively functions as another tax on their post-tax income. When you start adding in the costs of food, internet, phone,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The authors write that "the incomes of the top 1% collectively made up 11% of national income in 1980, but now constitute above 20% of national income, while the 20% of US national income that was attributable to the bottom 50% in 1980 has fallen to just 12% today. Further, "while average pre-tax income for the bottom 50% has stagnated at around $16,000 since 1980, the top 1% has experienced 300% growth in their inc…
globalization only benefits the rich. They can arbitrage labor and then keep the difference in profit. The supposed lowering of cost to make up for job loss and wage reduction didn't happen
Greed is a weird thing, if you listen to 1% bankers you can hear after a point it's not actually about making more money for the money's sake, it's making more money than your peers.
Toxic hypercompetetive culture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The authors write that "the incomes of the top 1% collectively made up 11% of national income in 1980, but now constitute above 20% of national income, while the 20% of US national income that was attributable to the bottom 50% in 1980 has fallen to just 12% today. Further, "while average pre-tax income for the bottom 50% has stagnated at around $16,000 since 1980, the top 1% has experienced 300% growth in their inc…
However the top 20% pay over 80% of the taxes.
Well let's pile some more random data onto this tire fire and jump to some conclusions. (edit: comparing 2015 to 2017) How much do Americans earn? 2015 data [1]: median household income was $52K. If you're white. If you're black, the median is $34K. So, only like, 1/3 less. Or if you're asian, the median is $72K. 2017 data [2]: median household income apparently jumps to $62k. If you're white it's $65k, black it's $4…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is remarkably ignorant of the actual circumstances that lower-class Americans have to deal with, especially when you share almost improbable statistics that are completely out of touch with reality. 30,000 is far from a decent income considering people get gouged on health insurance, which effectively functions as another tax on their post-tax income. When you start adding in the costs of food, internet, phone,…
At $30,000, a family likely qualifies for Medicaid in their state.
The poorest states it would seem to me are also the ones most stringent with offering Medicaid.
[1] https://medicaid.georgia.gov/sites/medicaid.georgia.gov/file...