[1] https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-bracke...
Taxing 70%? That’s a sure fire way to have your precious tax donkeys leave the country. Then who will pay for everyone who doesn’t want to work?
It’s this mentality that makes me not want to visit HN anymore.
Am I the only one here who thinks sending off a huge portion of what I make is not really worth it? California was nice. But it’s not worth working another 5-10 years for the privilege. Don’t worry I’ll come back to California in 15 years when I have zero income and only property. If there’s water left.
Without society and government, you can expect fewer opportunities to prosper and live a nice, comfy, insulated little life.
Which results in post tax (and post 401K) incomes of 340K (FL) and 305K (SF), or around a 10% difference in post-tax salary.
You can verify this yourself on SmartAsset: https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes
It's 7x the median household income.
Still basically on the cutoff of top 1% (I believe the cutoff is 600K nominal).
I don't mean to be rude about it, but it's kind of bizarre.
That is certainly well beyond the household average in the US, which is still below 100k. So, yes, most people consider >5x average annual household income to be lumped with "wealthy". Haha, that's two People, each making 20k per month.
Being so totally immersed in your own chase with the Joneses to miss that verges on comedic were it not so insulting.
US household median income is around $70k. In 2022, 6% earned over $250k, and some (undefined) portion of that earned over $500k. 94% of that 6% is White or Asian. You may not be a billionaire, but you're still a long ways off from the average American's lived experience.
Taxing 70% isn't so different from what we used to do in recent decades. In 1980 the highest marginal tax rate was 70% at $215,400 ($765,084 in 2022 dollars) for married couples filing jointly. Somehow the US survived, and was a lot less divided as a country. In 1944 it was even up to 94% for those making $200k or above (not adjusted for inflation).
If you think that $500k isn't wealthy, you may be the one out of touch. There are many people working longer, harder than your typical HNer and making much, MUCH less -- in the US alone.
2020 Household income distribution: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...
Tax history 1913-2013 (not adjusted for inflation): https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/fed_individual_r...
If you make $400k as a couple in Silicon Valley, live in a modest apartment in Burlingame, you can easily spend north if $5k/m in rent alone.
Let’s now suppose you have two or three kids with some expenses. Braces are $6500 each. You tore a rotator cuff, there’s another $4k. This happens, that happens.
I can go on and on, but at the end of the day, you don’t own a home, live in smaller housing than most people I know in the burbs, drive a 12 year old Subaru, are not putting away enough for college by a long shot, so you’ll have to take out lots of loans (even for in-state), etc.
The end result is this feels a lot more like middle class. Income tax alone eats 50% and you get relatively little for it if you don’t believe in buying F22s.
There is no big savings account, stock holdings, vacation home, tax shelter, etc. Just two people making decent money that are raising a couple of kids in the same way our parents did, except it costs a lot more here.
Without local cost of living, this discussion is meaningless.