Minor nitpick, the parent said they pay 40% in state and federal taxes and social security and you quoted only federal taxes (looks like the last graph includes Social Security)

I still don't know how much the parent pays in taxes, but that didn't include state tax, either income, property, or sales tax.

What state has a ~20% effective tax rate? I don't see any marginal tax rates that even come close: http://taxes.about.com/od/statetaxes/a/highest-state-income-...

I'm obviously estimating, but when I look at which is more likely, someone misunderstanding tax brackets, or someone paying an insane amount of property tax in a state that doesn't exist, the first choice seems more likely.

I didn't say or even imply any did. I said "minor nitpick."

I said "I still don't know how much the parent pays in taxes."

The GP might be counting all their payroll deductions as kinda a "tax" depending on how you look at it. It doesn't matter, I just pointed out you didn't include state taxes.

Well, New York State will add around 6% on top of that and New York City will add about 3%. And those are just income taxes.

> Throwing money at the problem is literally the best way to solve it:

You clearly didn't read the whole article. This particular family inherited $40k but spent it on heroin. The naivety of that Atlantic article is astounding.

I think New York City has done an absolute ton for this family. This girl might have done okay, except her mother encourages her to fight her peers (and the mom picks fights with store clerks in front of her children). That is ultimately going to be her downfall, and I am not sure what the city is supposed to do.

Looking at my 2012 tax return: my taxable income last year was $x and the sum of my federal and state taxes (including all FICA, or in my case, "self-employment tax") was $0.39x. Including local taxes and fees it would definitely be 40%+.

That's a bit of a cheat, though, since "taxable income" is the number you get after accounting for all the politically contrived deductions and exemptions. As a percentage of my total income it's more like 25%, and if I also don't include FICA (since that's just the government holding onto my money for me until I'm old, right?) it goes all the way down to 12%.

That said, 25% is the reality, although it does feel like 40% sometimes.

True, but if you count student loan repayments and health insurance payments (something that most civilized countries provide for free or low cost)- those are almost a tax and quickly get you over 40%.

I live in NYC and my net income is just under 60% of my gross income