You know I believe it.
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Seriously? WTF
Scraping by at $400k? I just canât even process. Almost half a million a year and you canât pull your shit together?
Arrrrrrgh! Who are these people?
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Itâs geography-dependent.
I know itâs obscene, but try getting by in NYC or SF (proper) with $400k/year. Youâre just as middle class as someone in St. Louis making $100k/yr. One serious illness from losing your home.
And thatâs fuck-all Iâm doing for the rest of the month defending Joe Biden. Whoâs got next?
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Oh, there are. Last I heard, recent WH cases outstripped Australia, Thailand, and a handful of other countriesâ cases, combined. I got it from Trevor Noah, but I consider him a credible source.
Came back to add, start around 2:33 if you donât want the preamble:
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Itâs more the MW piece than Biden.
Crying at $400k a year is blowing smoke up our asses. Then again Iâm certainly not their target audience.
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And this is where I vacillate between socialism and enlightened capitalism. The socialism on my left shoulder is saying, âIf the workers control the means of production, geography should be an irrelevance!â While the Dem-Soc on my right shoulder is saying, âSome people want to live in the heartland, while others want to live on the beach. Who should be penalized for where there heart takes them?â
OK, left shoulder wins that round. No one should be one diagnosis away from poverty. Ever.
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Yes, at the top they mention an âexpensive metropolitan areaâ, and in small print at the end of the list they mention:
Relevant cities: SF, NYC, Boston, LA, San Diego, Seattle, DC, Boston, Honolulu
So yeah, of course theyâre going to get drained by the mortgage ($81k/yr). And since they simply must send the kids to private daycares and pre-school in those cities (with both parents, presumably in their early 30s, working $200k jobs each), thatâs another $63k. So theyâve already burned through half their net income because theyâre a family of four living in a big desirable city in a $2-million 4BD/2BA house. The rest of the expenses indicates that theyâre living an upper middle class existence in an alpha- or beta-grade city (including $3k a year to charity, investing $39k in a matching 401k , $7200 for an annual vacation, etc.) â far from âbarely scraping byâ (and is, in fact, an insult to households that actually are living paycheque to paycheque).
If itâs a struggle, renting makes most of the âproblemâ go away to the tune of about $50k â more if they find a daycare and preschool that isnât putting the little darlings on the track to the Ivy league. Moving to a more affordable beta city also makes the âproblemâ go away in a similar way.
Thatâs the only wild card â one which the article assiduously avoids mentioning lest people start asking âwhy not single-payer universal?â. It looks like the family has gold or platinum coverage, with the employer paying 70% of the cost. But a serious illness is going to get this family whether it has $34 left over at the end of the month or $50k.
Also not mentioned: Bidenâs proposed tax increase is of course progressive, and doesnât kick in until the first dollar after $400k gross income.
tl;dr: if youâre complaining about a 0.9% average decrease in after-tax income due to Bidenâs policy because you claim âbarely scraping byâ on an annual household income of $400k, youâre missing whoâs really screwing you over (hint: it ainât Biden.)
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There is nothing âmiddleâ about the top 1.8% of taxpayers. The average income in NYC is $60,762, so I really canât trust the idea that people in New York who make 400k are somehow struggling normals.
So, really it is people living in places and buying things they canât afford. For those of us in the bottom half of the 100k a year range, that would be âirresponsible.â How that is applied to the top 1.8% is up to the individual, I guess.
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and note that the above budget shows the family maxing out retirement oriented expenses like the 401(k) which would be much less necessary in a country with a more generous and socially responsible level of retirement pension.
i know some teachers in texas making roughly $55k who are putting $2500/month back in 403(b) contributions and virtually living on their spouseâs incomes. my income is closer to $65k annually and i have substantially less going into 403(b) but my wifeâs postal pensions give us a better retirement income than iâll have from texas teacher retirement and hers is indexed to cpi where teacher retirement virtually takes state constitutional amendment to raise.
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Sadly, 25-40% of the people reading that article â including some living in those cities and making a lot less than $400k â will nod along to its bogus framing. This is precisely because these âtemporarily embarrassed millionairesâ and wannabe Galts donât have the financial literacy and the class awareness to see through it to the more reasonable micro- and macro-economic conclusions about how this âproblemâ could be solved.
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unfortunately unless, or until, i write my own financial math curriculum that gets adopted by the state of texas, i can only reach 90-120 distracted high school juniors and seniors a year. of course that would require the same state board that thinks that recognizing that slavery was a major basis of american wealth is, at best, unamerican and at worst a communist plot, to adopt a curriculum that emphasizes the inequities in the system and ways to try to overcome them in oneâs own personal finance.
at least my administration doesnât actively interfere with my methods.
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Damn, I must be delusional. I make a fraction of that and consider myself pretty wealthy.
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The deranged mentality of Il Doucheâs Know-Nothing supporters: the minimum-wage worker is âirresponsibleâ because she upgraded her phone when she renewed her plan; the heads of the $400k/yr. household are âbarely scraping byâ because they can only take two $3500 family vacations per year.
It will be a hard sell. Even if you couched it in the Xtianist language of frugality and self-sacrifice, youâre still going to be offending the myriad weatlhy rip-off artists and nickel-and-dimers who prey on poor people and who donate to the Texas GOP.
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Well, that and having to pay ridiculous prices for real estate so they donât have to be near any people of color.
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From across the pond:
Where there is âGolden Dawnâ I see âRepublicansâ. Could be itâs early yet.
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Not surprised. Street thugs and small-time local gangsters are always the core enforcers of fascist organisations.
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Alex, Iâll take Proud Boys for $100.
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