Anyway - there's a lot of minimum wage workers who make below $40k - probably the majority make less than half that - many minimum wage workers do not work full-time.
And, yes, considering how many single-parent HHs there are, and how many HHs with only 1 person on a small SS check - two working adults making minimum wage would be considered close to low end for middle class.
Median HH income is $67k - meaning only 50% of HH make more than that. So the bar for middle class is obviously going to be lower than that. It's subjective - maybe your bar is at $50k? The tax rate is still quite low at that point (~14% with ~7% of that being your pension - SS & Medicare - even lower if this is a family instead of a single person - which, statistically, is likely).
If this is considered hammered - I don't know how low people expect taxes should be, yet we still have a functioning society.
And, regardless, you're getting significantly more hammered the more income you make until you're deep into the 1% and can afford to avoid taxes. The top 10% are not skimping out on taxes. People making >$5M are.
Of course we also had the idea that "middle class" was more of an aspirational lifestyle goal and not a moving target. I guess if we just define it accurately as the median of real incomes we can see this range drop alarmingly. Thanks for the perspective.
That was top-end middle class, absolute minimum.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1982/demographi...
I'd argue median income is irrelevant when it comes to assessing whether or not someone is living a middle class lifestyle.
NYC and The Bay area have always been expensive. But the difference 40-years ago was nowhere near as drastic as it is today.
The largest state minimum wage can be found in New York and Washington, DC, at $15. That is $30,000 annually.
Define middle class. If you make >$250k but <$2M - you're probably getting hammered. But I don't think many people consider that "middle class". The ones with the highest tax rates by far make around $400-$600k. You don't have enough income for it to make sense to spend a lot of money to avoid taxes (accountants, tax lawyers, shielding income through corporations, etc) - and most of your income is "earned" from an employer - so you don't have many strategies to avoid taxes realistically anyway. You're pretty much stuck with a relatively high tax rate. But this is the top 1% - that doesn't seem middle class to me.
If you make ~$100k - you're still in the top 15% - but your tax rate is really not THAT high. Middle class should probably center on FAMILIES earning between ~$40k and ~$100k. By no means are these FAMILIES being hammered with taxes - on the low end, you're looking at hardly any federal or state tax beside payroll (your pension).