Here comes the middle-class tax hike
-
@george-k said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@jolly said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
Fact check: The median family income in 1944 was less than $3000.
Today's median family income is $79,900.
I’m guessing the median family income comes from something close to 2 earners whereas in 1944 it was something close to 1.
When you shake someone's deep sense of self-worth, leaving a scar in their ego, they will persistently try to diminish you through petty arguments & obsessive captious criticism of your actions, just to soothe the wound.
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
-
@jon-nyc said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@george-k said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@jolly said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
Fact check: The median family income in 1944 was less than $3000.
Today's median family income is $79,900.
I’m guessing the median family income comes from something close to 2 earners whereas in 1944 it was something close to 1.
I'd say that's a lot better than a guess.
-
@mik said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@horace said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@mik said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
I keep hearing about the destruction of the middle class even as I see the middle class living a far better life than when I was a kid.
I think through a middle class person's financial outlook for retirement, if they work a job with no pension, raise a family, and save reasonably. Good luck with that unless the stock market is high performing.
And what's the statistic again, more than 50% of Americans have essentially no savings?
Is that a result of low income or of poor budgeting and spending habits? Possibly a combination of both, a drawback of the consumer economy.
Our retirement savings are mostly in the same investments they were in when they were called pensions. They are just not managed nor guaranteed by the corporations. But they were always in securities of one sort or another.
In the so called Golden Age of the American worker my uncle worked in a machine shop with no pension all his life. That can still happen today. But it doesn't have to.
Let's take a middle class couple, two-earner family...Wife is a school teacher/clerical worker/retail worker and husband is a school teacher/mailman/HVAC tech. What are we talking about? $80k-$100K? Let's throw two kids into the mix...How middle-class is that couple?
-
@horace said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@mik said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
Today's pensions are not what they used to be either.
Yes, this is another generational difference, and not in favor of younger generations.
Well OK, but I look at my daughter's friends, and the houses these people live in, and I'm not left with the feeling that they're struggling. These things are freaking massive.
OK, maybe these people aren't average, but they're just kids going to State school in a fairly middle-of-the-road suburban town, and their houses are like nothing I ever saw when I was a kid, with the exception of that one really rich kid we all knew.
Our house is 1200 sq. feet. When I moved here we made a choice to live in a town with a good school, and live in a really small house.
-
Another pointless anecdote - we interviewed a guy in his mid-40's for a job, and explained in detail about the full pension that's offered, and how it's so unusual nowadays.
He took a competing job that offered $5K more, with no pension.
My boss asked whether we should make a counter-offer, and I said no, I don't want to hire somebody that dumb.
Proud supporter of Plan 2525.
-
@doctor-phibes said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
Another pointless anecdote - we interviewed a guy in his mid-40's for a job, and explained in detail about the full pension that's offered, and how it's so unusual nowadays.
He took a competing job that offered $5K more, with no pension.
My boss asked whether we should make a counter-offer, and I said no, I don't want to hire somebody that dumb.
Fair assessment. Unless he's yet another job hopper who doesn't plan on staying anyway. These people are legion. People like me who stick around, mostly due to a general lack of ambition and profound laziness, end up with cultural knowledge that the job hoppers never achieve, while their resumes ever burgeon with useless junk, and while they convince themselves that they learn so much going from job to job.
-
Yeah, if you change jobs every three years you've got no reason to complain about the lack of pension.
There's a lot to be said for lack of ambition and profound laziness. Or so I've heard.
-
@horace said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@doctor-phibes said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
Another pointless anecdote - we interviewed a guy in his mid-40's for a job, and explained in detail about the full pension that's offered, and how it's so unusual nowadays.
He took a competing job that offered $5K more, with no pension.
My boss asked whether we should make a counter-offer, and I said no, I don't want to hire somebody that dumb.
Fair assessment. Unless he's yet another job hopper who doesn't plan on staying anyway. These people are legion. People like me who stick around, mostly due to a general lack of ambition and profound laziness, end up with cultural knowledge that the job hoppers never achieve, while their resumes ever burgeon with useless junk, and while they convince themselves that they learn so much going from job to job.
Most young guys today are job hoppers. $5000/yr is a different universe for them
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@jolly said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@horace said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@doctor-phibes said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
Another pointless anecdote - we interviewed a guy in his mid-40's for a job, and explained in detail about the full pension that's offered, and how it's so unusual nowadays.
He took a competing job that offered $5K more, with no pension.
My boss asked whether we should make a counter-offer, and I said no, I don't want to hire somebody that dumb.
Fair assessment. Unless he's yet another job hopper who doesn't plan on staying anyway. These people are legion. People like me who stick around, mostly due to a general lack of ambition and profound laziness, end up with cultural knowledge that the job hoppers never achieve, while their resumes ever burgeon with useless junk, and while they convince themselves that they learn so much going from job to job.
Most young guys today are job hoppers. $5000/yr is a different universe for them
This guy was in his 40's with kids. We reckon the pension is worth roughly $25K a year. You've only got to work there for 5 years to be vested.
No doubt when he's in his 60's he'll complain about how the middle class have done so badly.
-
@doctor-phibes said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
This guy was in his 40's with kids. We reckon the pension is worth roughly $25K a year. You've only got to work there for 5 years to be vested.
Is the $5k/yr the only difference or are their other differences? Stock options from a startup, perhaps?
Different type of work or different levels of responsibility?
Different level of title, maybe?
Different boss (not you)? -
@axtremus said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@doctor-phibes said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
This guy was in his 40's with kids. We reckon the pension is worth roughly $25K a year. You've only got to work there for 5 years to be vested.
Is the $5k/yr the only difference or are their other differences? Stock options from a startup, perhaps?
Different type of work or different levels of responsibility?
Different level of title, maybe?
Different boss (not you)?Actually, his new office desk will levitate through anti-gravitational waves, but sadly, only on days that have high tides in the region. That's quite a perk.
Or maybe it's not just gravitational waves that make his desk elevate. It could always have help...
-
For all the talk about the loss of the middle class USA person (which I am not sure is true), most people in the US dont really know how good they have it, when compared to the rest of the world.
One of my friends was joking that being poor in the US meant that your iPhone was 3 (or more) generations behind.
Those "poor" people should visit rural India (or even the house I grew up in).
Of course, there are really poor people in the US who struggle, and even middle class people who struggle, but all in all, most people in the US have it pretty good.
-
@taiwan_girl said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
One of my friends was joking that being poor in the US meant that your iPhone was 3 (or more) generations behind.
We've had this conversation in the past.
The "poor" people have two cars, air conditioning, a couple of flatscreen TVs and cable.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
-
@george-k said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
@taiwan_girl said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
One of my friends was joking that being poor in the US meant that your iPhone was 3 (or more) generations behind.
We've had this conversation in the past.
The "poor" people have two cars, air conditioning, a couple of flatscreen TVs and cable.
The really poor people only have ONE car. 555
-
Education is extremely important.
-
@horace said in Here comes the middle-class tax hike:
American citizenship has massive advantages as compared to third world citizenship. That's why we don't let just anybody in.
On the negative side, you're still Americans.
