Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

cbsnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 186 posts

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#131

Post by topkai22 »

cercatrova wrote: post #123
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it shows how far we’ve come, as that income would have been considered rich in 1900!

$20,000 in 1900 is worth $619,971.43 today, so not sure what your argument is. It's not the raw number value that matters but what people can buy with it.

The average annual salary in 1900 was in the range of $450. That's about $14k today. What's worse, that when norms dictated a ~60 hour week and households, even at the low end of the spectrum, were often single earner.

While "rich" is over stating it, based on purely inflationary measures $20k in 2020 (or $645 in 1900) was not bad pay.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#132

Post by cercatrova »

topkai22 wrote: post #131
cercatrova wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20,000 in 1900 is worth $619,971.43 today, so not sure what your argument is. It's not the raw number value that matters but what people can buy with it.

The average annual salary in 1900 was in the range of $450. That's about $14k today. What's worse, that when norms dictated a ~60 hour week and households, even at the low end of the spectrum, were often single earner. While "rich" is over stating it, based on purely inflationary measures $20k in 2020 (or $645 in 1900) was not bad pay.

Sure. We can still do better though.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#133

Post by roganartu »

seibelj wrote: post #100
llamataboot wrote: post #75

Some things are already starting to give way pretty loudly, and others are yet to come. You simply cannot maintain a democratic society (for whatever nominal value of democracy you want) with these levels on inequality and non-shared misery. I’m not sure what the next decade holds for the US, but it’s either gonna be some major-scale reinvestment and redistribution or it’s gonna get pretty damn unstable.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

> The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes)

This is a common misunderstanding of how taxes work, or specifically what refunds mean. Getting a refund does not mean you paid zero or negative tax. Getting a refund simply means that you had more tax withheld than you should have. The tax withheld from your regular paycheck is not authoritative, it's just a prepayment of your estimated tax bill for the year, and it is almost always slightly inaccurate.

You can see this for yourself assuming you earn above the poverty line. Your tax return has three fields related to this: total tax withheld, total taxable income, and the tax owed given your taxable income. Getting a refund just means the tax withheld is greater than the tax owed. The total tax owed on your tax return is the tax you actually paid for the year, and for the vast majority of people it is >$0 even if they get a refund. In fact, the approximate tax paid on the median US household income (~$68k) would be ~$13k (assuming the household files a joint married return) which is decidedly non-zero.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#134

Post by mxcrossb »

eigen wrote: post #125
mxcrossb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of hopeless people are a long way from retirement Source?

>> The majority of hopeless people are a long way from retirement >Source? assuming "long way from retirement" is 10+ years. Discouraged over job prospects age 24-55: 311k age 55+: 170k Discouraged workers are persons marginally attached to the labor force who did not actively look for work in the prior 4 weeks for reasons such as thinks no work available, could not find work, lacks schooling or training, employer th…

Thanks!

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#135

Post by _qulr »

seibelj wrote: post #100
llamataboot wrote: post #75

Some things are already starting to give way pretty loudly, and others are yet to come. You simply cannot maintain a democratic society (for whatever nominal value of democracy you want) with these levels on inequality and non-shared misery. I’m not sure what the next decade holds for the US, but it’s either gonna be some major-scale reinvestment and redistribution or it’s gonna get pretty damn unstable.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

Don't forget about FICA, which is 7.65% that is only taken out of wages (not investment earnings), and only paid on the first ~$140K of wages.

I was astonished to discover earlier in my career, after a pay raise, that I got to stop paying FICA at a certain point. I didn't even realize there was an upper limit. It's a tax that only applies to "lower" income workers. Highly regressive.

Also, US income taxes are only nominally progressive. There are so many loopholes that very wealthy people (most infamously the POTUS) can end up paying no taxes whatsoever. Tax dodging is a science and an art. Didn't Warren Buffett say he paid a lower rate than his secretary?

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#136

Post by seibelj »

_qulr wrote: post #135
seibelj wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

Don't forget about FICA, which is 7.65% that is only taken out of wages (not investment earnings), and only paid on the first ~$140K of wages. I was astonished to discover earlier in my career, after a pay raise, that I got to stop paying FICA at a certain point. I didn't even realize there was an upper limit. It's a tax that only applies to "lower" income workers. Highly regressive. Also, US income taxes are only no…

That’s because social security isn’t a “tax” - it’s funding pensions, and you pay into it now to get a pension later, which is capped at maximum payout, which is why you don’t have to pay above a salary amount because above which you won’t increase your income in retirement.

However to reform social security so it can actually be maintained, I agree we should increase the limits or remove them entirely. But keep in mind social security is not seen as a tax - it’s a retirement pension. If we are going to change it so that rich people pay more and get less, we should also reform Medicare so that rich people pay for their own healthcare in retirement. Tons of old age programs give handouts to the rich - that’s not what they are for.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#137

Post by ihm »

yalogin wrote: post #97

Income and wealth disparity is the biggest problem in the US and it’s not given the attention it deserves. The republicans have no interest in addressing it, in fact they actively make it worse every chance they get. The Democrats want to address it but cannot focus. It’s what is causing these symptoms like trump in the country.

The Democrats also have no interest in addressing it, they're largely funded by the same people as the Republicans.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#138

Post by jandrewrogers »

_qulr wrote: post #135
seibelj wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has the most progressive tax system in the world - far more than Europe. The middle and lower classes pay basically 0 tax, or even get refunds (negative taxes), while the rich pay basically all taxes https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-... The middle and lower classes in Europe pay very high tax rates, but get a lot in return. The left in America is promising European-style safety nets…

Don't forget about FICA, which is 7.65% that is only taken out of wages (not investment earnings), and only paid on the first ~$140K of wages. I was astonished to discover earlier in my career, after a pay raise, that I got to stop paying FICA at a certain point. I didn't even realize there was an upper limit. It's a tax that only applies to "lower" income workers. Highly regressive. Also, US income taxes are only no…

In the US, there is the fiction that FICA pays for your Social Security pension, somewhat proportional to your contribution, though high contributors don’t get benefits in proportion to contribution. There is a legitimate fear by the government that if it becomes viewed as just another income tax that political support for the tax will evaporate. It is really important for it to be viewed as a pension contribution of sorts, which is obviously capped by how much it pays out.

If you did not limit the taxes and they explicitly became income taxes (in appearance), many upper-middle class Americans would find themselves paying upwards of 50-60% taxes on income for vanishingly few benefits. That has political ramifications that the government would rather avoid.

The challenge for the US is that the taxes on the middle class are very low relative to e.g. Europe. But they cannot squeeze enough taxes from the top 20% that pay most net taxes to make up the difference.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#139

Post by WalterBright »

arp242 wrote: post #129
WalterBright wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a more meta observation that "poverty" has many subjective definitions. Certainly many (not all) people we would consider living in poverty today would be considered well off even 100 years ago. For example, owning a functioning automobile was a huge luxury only for the rich 100 years ago. For another example, the terms of the debate have shifted. It used to be about the objective state of the poor people. Today…

Owning a car wasn't a requirement to get anywhere 100 years ago though, or to hold a job, whereas it is for many areas/people now. Or another example: I really don't like smartphones, for all sorts of reasons not worth getting in to here. But having one is sort-of a requirement these days since all kinds of services are only available as a phone app, and many company's primary method of contact is WhatsApp, and a lot…

If you don't like the car example, pick an attribute where poor people 100 years ago were better off than today.

Re: 1 in 4 Americans are jobless or earning poverty-level wages, new study finds

#140

Post by arp242 »

WalterBright wrote: post #139
arp242 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning a car wasn't a requirement to get anywhere 100 years ago though, or to hold a job, whereas it is for many areas/people now. Or another example: I really don't like smartphones, for all sorts of reasons not worth getting in to here. But having one is sort-of a requirement these days since all kinds of services are only available as a phone app, and many company's primary method of contact is WhatsApp, and a lot…

If you don't like the car example, pick an attribute where poor people 100 years ago were better off than today.

I think this is missing the point. You can always point to people who have it worse off throughout all of history.
Post reply on HN