How Your Income Stacks Up
by Kevin McCormally
Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Where do you rank as a taxpayer? You may not feel rich earning $35,000 a year, but you’re in the top half of taxpayers. Make $70,000, and you earn more than 75 percent of fellow taxpayers.

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Even as the Great Recession ends, we know the economic wounds it inflicted will take years to heal. The national unemployment rate has breached 10 percent, and unemployment is higher than 12 percent in California and above 15 percent in Michigan. A new study from the Department of Agriculture found that nearly 50 million Americans struggled at some point in 2008 to get enough to eat.

More than 40 million Americans are officially living in poverty. And you might be surprised at how little income it takes to not be considered poor by the federal government. For 2008, the poverty threshold for a single person under age 65 was an income of $11,201, or less than $1,000 a month. For a family of four, the threshold was $21,834. For a family of six, $28,769.

With that perspective, you may wonder just how your income stacks up against that of your fellow citizens. New statistics from the IRS provide an answer. The numbers here come from an analysis of 2007 tax returns, the most recent ones that have been studied.

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The data show that an income of $32,879 or more puts you in the top half of taxpayers. Earning a bit more than twice that much — $66,532 — earns you a spot among the top 25 percent of all earners. You crack the elite top 10 percent if you earn more than $113,018.

And $410,096 buys top bragging rights: Earn that much or more and you’re among the top 1 percent of all American earners.

Kiplinger has developed an online calculator to quickly show you — based on your personal adjusted gross income — into which income category you fall and, as a bonus, what percentage of the nation’s tax burden is borne collectively by you and your fellow citizens who are in that income category. The following table shows the income categories and the percentage of income earned and tax burden paid by each category.

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/108460/how-your-income-stacks-up?mod=career-salary_negotiation

Notice that the top 1% of income earners pay over 40% of all income tax collected. The bottom 50% pay 3%.

California relies heavily on income tax to pay it’s bills. Those 1% of our population at the top, use their money in speculative investments, IE. real estate development and stock investment. When the economy collapses their high risk investments get hit hardest. Our tax money dries up. Simple. If you want to save the State from these wild budget cycles you need to look spreading the tax burden throughout society, not consolidating it with a handful of wealthy individuals. If you can’t do that and still provide basic services to seniors and the poor, you don’t have a working system. PERIOD. The solution…reevaluate the budget and take out the things you can’t afford. That is responsible government.
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Must have not been Palmdale, illegals are safe there thanks to the efforts of Jimbo Leadbelly.
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Jimbo Leadbelly thinks that city workers are too busy to implement a program like Lancaster is getting ready to do, make businesses use eVerify.

Maybe Steve ’DaHoff or one of the other Palmdale council members will force the issue and put coupling eVerify to business licenses on the council agenda one day soon, ought to upset Jimbo.
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Well now that TRex has upped the ante, maybe time to re-evaluate eVerify for all businesses in Palmdale?
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Well we’ve had 1 year of Hope and Change so there is that. I Hope that this country and our citizens are not killed by terrorists because Obama the boy wonder can’t figure it out.

I’m also Hope and Change for the Senate and the House come the 2010 elections.
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But they can investigate me all they want.
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some of you people crack me up with your “disgust” for law enforcement or pre-employment investigative practices.
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Bullshit. Presuming that you have nothing to hide… How would you like to be under constant surveillance & investigation even though you haven’t done anything wrong?

It is not about ‘fear,’ it is about excessive power in the hands of government. Real Americans bristle at the thought of an over-intrusive government because it represents oppression.
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I would think that, having to suffer all the investigations that you do from the various agencies involved, that you would also bristle at the unwarranted and intrusive investigation of the innocent that this represents.
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These on-going investigations are similar to how the Insurance companies operate now with pre-existing conditions.
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i don’t think u understand.

obama spy’s (dem) bad, bad. taking our rights!

lil rex spy’s (rep) good, good. protecting us!!

then they hand OUR rights over!
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Even the Palmdale Sheriff’s dept. tried to disrupt the Minutemen after we held peaceful, non-violent sidewalk protests.
Any cicil war will have to happen during the 2010 and 2012 election(s).
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So… You want to give up not only your liberties to do so, but mine as well?

And you complain about the liberals taking away your liberties?
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Cj it isn’t even close. It isn’t leveling the playin field it is giving us a fighting chance against an element we don’t need to help out.
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Regulations and oversights for business does not equate with the truly extraordinarily intrusive method of the eye in the sky for general surveillance of the public at large.

The difference is that we have a choice to go into the business of our choosing and accept the regulations and oversight applied thereto. We do not get the choice to accept or deny this new general surveillance of the public in their own homes.
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So, I repeat my premise: The difference is that we have a choice to go into the business of our choosing and accept the regulations and oversight applied thereto. We do not get the choice to accept or deny this new general surveillance of the public in their own homes.
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So I simply concluded you mean you want crime to run rampant with luck playing a roll in catching the bad guy. This would be akin to the Sheriff not wanting us to have guns on our person because it may lower crime rates.

Oh wait the Sheriff does that already.

Assuming all business is criminal and government is to prevent criminality, businessmen submit to all kinds of freedom limiting devices.

On the other hand, criminals know they are going to commit a crime, they weight the consequence vs. the reward then decide the course of action. They deliberately commit crime.

Business crimes are usually after the loop hole that was expolited it is then determined to be a crime.

Eye in the sky is our extra help to prevent criminals from commiting crimes. It would be like alowing citizens the right to self-defense.

You arguement that it takes away our privacy is absurd at best.
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Randy Hall says…
“So I simply concluded you mean you want crime to run rampant with luck playing a roll in catching the bad guy.” And you accuse me of misrepresenting what you say?!?

“It would be like alowing citizens the right to self-defense.” Really? I would love to see how the eye in the sky equates to self defense when it is being controlled by representatives of the government.

As for your thoughts on rational choice theory, I would point out that nearly every study has proven that the theoretical portion that you are forwarding as support is dead wrong. It is not the weight of the consequences that matters, it is the likelihood of getting caught that does. Now, before you start thinking that this makes your point, I would also point out that the likelihood of this eye in the sky being pointed in the right direction at the right time, coupled with the ability of law enforcement to respond in a timely enough manner to either stop the crime or apprehend the criminal effectively, is so miniscule as to make the proposed trade off against the citizens’ right to privacy a ridiculous notion at best. This eye in the sky is simply another way for a government to try to cow the citizenry into submission and could only be supported by those who believe in totalitarianism.

“Privacy isn’t harmed by a camera in the sky.” Randy, such a statement is a self evidently outrageous prevarication that you couldn’t possibly believe.

You clearly do not support true conservative principles, Randy, but totalitarian ones.
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If there was a right to privacy why do I have to report my income?

What about STDs, you have to report them; so no right there.

CJ, it is no logic to take the position you take. I’m simply pointing out your positions flaws.

If it seems twisted, that is your problem, not mine.
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Your further inanity is just the typically twisted tactics used by all Parrisites. You accuse those defending our rights of trying to take them away.

Sad attempt, Randy. Truly sad.
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can’t wait to see lil rex’s enemys on youtube!
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In arguing against eye in the sky you say; “It is not the weight of the consequences that matters, it is the likelihood of getting caught that does.”

You then say that doesn’t matter because it “would also point out that the likelihood of this eye in the sky being pointed in the right direction at the right time, coupled with the ability of law enforcement to respond in a timely enough manner to either stop the crime or apprehend the criminal effectively, is so miniscule as to make the proposed trade off against the citizens’ right to privacy a ridiculous notion at best.”

The “likelihood” that criminals may have to contend with this new threat to their actions is 100%. Logically speaking of course.

To use a half-baked assertion that an eye in the sky is some how a threat to normal citizen’s actions is absurd at best. You would have to have a very active imagination to think a corrupt enforcement official would use this eye to do background checks or watch normal citizens go about their business.

So the “pretzel logic” of this whole problem you have with eye in the sky isn’t that you are afraid it may catch a criminal intent on doing a crime but the possibility of a government official overstepping their bounds and manufacturing a charge against a citizen that is engaging in normal actions.

Pardon me CJ while I put you in the 911 truther category.
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You said “You accuse those defending our rights of trying to take them away.”

And “You clearly do not support true conservative principles, Randy, but totalitarian ones.”

I said Logic CJ, is saying you want less crime and are are willing to use technology to fight it. No logic is saying a camera circling overhead is somehow an infringement on your mythical right of privacy.

You said “Your initial statement in that last bit of babble shows just how little you know about me or what I do.”

1. I never accused you of anything.
2. You called me totalitarian.
3. You said I’m not a true conservative.
4. You said I knew you when I was making a statement about our conservation.
5. You are saying you know me but denying me any chance of knowing you.
6. I have no idea what you do nor do I really care. I’m happy if your happy doing your job.

I find knowing the other side typical of non logical thought processes.
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The lawsuit accuses O’Donnell, 38, and another CHP dispatcher of illegally transmitting to the public gory images of car-crash victim Nicole “Nikki” Catsouras – turning her into an online sensation and further traumatizing her grieving Ladera Ranch family.
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Of course it’s no problemo to him & others like him checking out the backyards of private citizens – maybe the tapes will be available to the public – or on UTube?! ha.
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Skin tight low cut, and made up. Your trying to tell me they are not trying to attact attention?

Which one are you in my yoga class Roxi? You know Allaire, or Caryn?
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u wouldn’t need to show ur opposition doing anything illegal.

something as simple as someone picking their nose or scratching their ass could cost a election. frame it right, and those running the camera’s could cost us real leadership. just make something legal look ugly enough and it’s a done deal.
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You’re almost there, Randy. Keep thinking it through like our founding fathers would and you might just get there.
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Perhaps if you lose some weight it will clear things up for you a bit. Of course the damage may already be done and if that is the case my sincere wishes for a speedy recovery!
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and i’m sure that time at rex’s pool
did nothing for ya. lol
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I’d never call another man pet names. I call my wife some names meant to convey affection (honey, dear, love bug, sweetheart) and have always thought pet names were a sign of affection. But Lancaster I pointed that out to you when you first started calling me the pet name “Toy Boy. I never suspected you being derogatory. A Toy Boy is usually something a cougar uses and I thought you were stalking me in that manor. Again my sincere apologies for any insult you may have felt.

Gawd, what a shock!

Am I the only one that thought lancaster was female?
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It really didn’t bother me when I thought lancaster was a stalking cougar, now for some reason it seems so…so…wrong!
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lol, sure TB, now tell us what lil rex calls u in the dark.
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oooh yuch!
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not being able to tell the difference between a term of endearment and an insult has probably caused more then one entertaining moment in ur life.

i guess the good thing about u purposely misunderstanding and pretending this is all about someone WANTING YOU, LOL, is u now know how the women at yoga feel when u come in!!

creeped out!
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You said you were old, but you never really grew up did you?

Growing fat is another sign of your inability to control yourself too.
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since u follow lil rex around like his female dog, with her tail between her legs, i believe i’m being kind in calling u his toyboy.

so i’ll stick with it.
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but then, not every one has the need to feel “pretty” like u.

and thanks 4 bringing up socal. seems a few months back, holier then thou TB, and cuz gave her a pretty good on-line beating!

i guess that was because TB is such a grown up!
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small world u live in.
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Old and fat brings to mind barely able to walk and can you imagine no real pleasure in life except stuffing your face with calories your body is screaming at you to ignore.
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Can you imagine the example of being “fat old man?” “But dad, another Twinkie is no problem you ate a case of them last week!”
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DBW told us she needed pills to keep her mentally healthy, I can only imagine if Lancaster lost a ton of weight how his outlook on life would change. Imagine looking at stairs not as a possible death sentence but as a work out challenge? Wonder when the last time he saw his infected toes? But his back hurts all the time; you can’t carry a beer belly and not have back pain.

Tell us Lancaster what was it that made you fat? McDonald’s triple thick shakes? Cheap calories like potato chips? Or where those pounds expensive like Filet or lobster?

No, not expensive pounds, more like Budweiser and peanut pounds. Push yourself away from the bar Lancaster sober up and enjoy life a bit. There is a world that opens up when you shed the weight.

Don’t tell me you are one of those that say you have a metabolism problem! That would make me laugh even harder at you.

Don’t hate me because I’m pretty that would be petty.
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Eat healthy, exercise and add years to your life. Or eat, drink, and be fat and merry and shorten you lifespan. Up to you. You’ve tried fat and old, why not turn over a new leaf. Try being healthy for a change.
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Please Lancaster, get some help.
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now run along and show ur girls how to be a princess, u pretty lil thing!
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give it a rest toyboy.
u win.
we all know ur the prettiest lil thing here.
now, don’t u have a facial appt. u need to run along to?
some young thing to creep out at yoga
maybe?
i know growing old scares ya, but u could always try surgery.
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But, even if it is a woman, I imagine that she probably has a good sense of humor.
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01/05/10 – 02:13 PM
lancaster says…
really, and all them pretty lil things in bikinis in their backyards are hoping someone like TB is looking, right?
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01/05/10 – 02:23 PM
lancaster says…
hey poser, are u really asking people to give u charity?
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01/05/10 – 02:27 PM
Randy Hall says…
Lancaster do you look good in a bikini? I’ll bet you do!

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01/05/10 – 02:29 PM
lancaster says…
if fat old men in bikinis turn u on TB,
who are we to judge?
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Think of that when you blog with lancaster; “fat old man.”
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