Comment by jandrewrogers
2 hours ago
As someone who lived much of their life in real poverty, you can live a pretty decent life on $50k in most of the US. Yeah, you won’t be posting your vacations on Instagram but who cares. Many people live a decent life within these income constraints. There is an enormous amount of government subsidies if you are this poor.
Don’t exaggerate what is required for a decent quality of life in America. It doesn’t benefit anyone.
That’s not a decent quality of life. I know you may feel differently and find it hard to think about it objectively because you lived it, but you had a poor quality of life. It’s great that you’re doing well and you made it through, but don’t romanticize it.
Compared to 99.9% of people in history, it's a king's life, and even today $50k is a top decile income. Of course, the US is more expensive than most countries, so you can move it down a bit, but it's tough to argue that you're not in at least the top 25% of people living today at least.
> ...you can live a pretty decent life on $50k in most of the US.
Where? And what's the size of the household?
It's one thing to make $50,000/year as a single young person sharing an apartment with 2 other people. It's another to be a family of 4.
> Don’t exaggerate what is required for a decent quality of life in America. It doesn’t benefit anyone.
"Decent" is subjective, but we can look at hard numbers.
After taxes, $50,000 will be somewhere between $39,000 and $42,000 in much of the US. That's $3,250 to $3,500/month. The median rental price of a 1 bedroom apartment in the US is about $1,500. A 2 bedroom is somewhere around or north of $1,800. That means the median 1 bedroom apartment already eats up almost 50% of your after-tax income at the lower end.
According to BLS, the average spend on groceries in the US is now over $500/month. The average cost of a used car in the US is now over $25,000. A set of new tires will run you $400 to over $1,000. The average cell phone bill is $140/month.
Do I need to keep going?
Numerous studies show that over half of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck and almost three-quarters of middle income earners say their wages aren't keeping up with the cost of living.
What doesn't benefit anyone is to pretend that tons of people aren't struggling.
Sure sounds like they can’t afford a family of 4 on that income. They have control over both variables in that situation.
Of course two people with low incomes shouldn't have two kids. But (as detailed in my other comment) you need a 4 person household with 2 kids to get tax negative at $50,000/year. Even a 3 person household with 1 kid isn't tax negative in most of the US at $50,000/year.
So the other poster's argument that $50,000/year isn't so bad because of transfers, tax credits, subsidies, etc. doesn't hold up to real-world examples.
It's unavoidably true that 50% of Americans are going to be below the median. I understand why someone might feel frustrated or say they're struggling if they look at their home, car, groceries, etc. and see that 50% of Americans have better ones. But no economic policy can solve this. A meaningful analysis has to be based on some level of functional adequacy, not just comparing median expenses to below-median income.
> After taxes, $50,000 will be somewhere between $39,000 and $42,000 in much of the US
NO. WRONG. Read what I actually said. This was after transfers, at the OP's income range US income tax is NEGATIVE and puts you at the $49,000 I cited.
> NO. WRONG.
Yelling doesn't prove your point, and you conveniently avoided answering the most important questions, like where and what household size?
First, there is no credit that offsets payroll tax.
A single person with $50,000/year income is not negative. They'd have about ~$34,000 in taxable income and pay ~$3,800 in federal income tax. A 2 person household filing jointly with no kids would still pay about $1,800.
A family of 4 (2 children) with $50,000/year gross income gets a benefit and probably keeps all of that (or a bit more) in take-home after the standard deduction, child tax credit, EITC. At 155% of the poverty line, they're probably above the SNAP gross-income cutoff but they'd probably get ACA premium subsidies and reduced-price school meals.
But they're still living at 50% of the median household income for a family of 4 and you'd have to explain how you think 4 people living on $4,100/month is anywhere near decent or easy in most of the US. The median rent alone for a 2 bedroom in the US eats up over 40% of that amount.
A family of 3 (1 child) in most states will not be negative after payroll and state tax at $50,000/year gross household income.
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