Your comment made me realize what a bubble of privilege I live in.

I raised my eyebrow at "everyone takes" standard deduction. How is that possible with home prices and interest rates? Even a modest 300-400k house at 5-6% interest, property taxes, local sales tax deductions and minimum charity would exceed the standard deduction. Where I live good luck finding anything more than a condo for less than a million.

Turns out 90% take standard deduction. This is another way to track the extreme "wealth" gap emerging. Only the wealthy itemize.

It’s more of a reality when home prices are over a million, or in a state with high property taxes. Be married, live in a state with low property taxes, buy a house for 700k… and you’re taking the standard.

We have a house more expensive than that, an interest rate around the top of that range, live in a state with somewhat high property taxes, and had at least $4k in health care spending on top of insurance premiums (no big problems, that's just what a handful of minor kid-related issues in a year costs in the US) and still wouldn't have done better itemizing. We took the standard for 2024.

We're ~92nd percentile for household income.

Married makes it huge, and many people own their homes on older loans.

I’ve never gotten close since it was raised.