65k household income in a working class neighborhood of LA is not poor. But you’re living paycheck to paycheck and you get fucked on financial aid for college - which could make the GI Bill very attractive.
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$65k is like $50k after state and federal taxes with deductions I think for an average family. $2k for rent + $1k for health care, leaves $1k for everything else. It’s not poor, but it’s pretty close. Or you could be a little less close to living on the streets if you rent out a garage for $800/mo or get a 1bd and have the kids living in the living room for $1400.
And in case people from other parts of the country think those are fancy neighborhood prices, they aren’t. Here are rentals in Compton
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Hey I only said to flag one of those posts. You people are playing fast and loose with your flag game.
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I didn’t click on the Compton link but $2k is a lot for rent in most of the country
Yeah, and $65k doesn’t go that far for a family in LA. I checked and found a nice house in Tulsa for $795/mo that would be $2500/mo in Compton - or $5500/month in xxx.
I remember working in La Plata, MO in college. About miles from college town Kirksville. You could rent a house for $75/mo.
It was funny how people thought 15 miles was like another universe. When most people in LA would kill for a commute that short (by time, not distance - 15 miles could take 2 hours in LA).
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You could rent a studio for $300 in the Tenderloin in SF in 1996.
Meanwhile
And that it is where a lot of the economic anxiety comes from but people perpetually blame the wrong things and the wrong people.
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Looks like Kony will have to wait until at least 2024.
I don’t dispute the overall thrust of the argument that wealth inequality is bad, but boy do I hate “studies” that are based on asking people how they feel about things. I used to run into this all the time in the retirement industry where I work and it drove me nuts. You can ask thousands or people about their “retirement readiness” and make a study of the results, but on the slightest examination you realize that the respondents are in no way qualified to comment on their readiness, so who gives a fuck what they think about it? It’s like conducting a weekly poll of all the dogs at the dog park to see if they think my cholesterol level is too high and then breathlessly reporting that the Cholesterol Tail Wag Index is up over last quarter.
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Solemani “could have been” plotting some attacks, according to Mark Esper.
I don’t like Jake Tapper but he did a pretty good job of letting Esper make an ass of himself.
$65k isn’t poverty level but it’s not that much either. Take out SS, Medicare, Federal and State taxes, deduct whatever your portion of the premium is for a likely crappy health, dental, vision insurance, put away a small portion into 401k, pay for housing and utilities, and you’ve quickly whittled your way down to an amount that isn’t that much to cover food, clothing, transportation and other variable expenses. When you do the math, it’s easy to see how 65k per year still means living paycheck to paycheck and being screwed in an emergency situation. The fact that this is at least 80% of the population in what is supposed to be the wealthiest country in the world is absurd.
The middle class is officially dead.
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$65k household income is paycheck-to-paycheck in much of the country. In expensive metro areas, I think it’s definitely poor unless the “household” is a single young person without any other mouths to feed.
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Household income is always analysed after tax and mostly „household equivalent“ is used, for analyzing distribution, so a family of four in the quintile making >65k would actually have an after tax income of >135k or even more, depending on what data are used.
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Not in the USA#1 it’s not. I believe it’s gross household income.
Edit: I take that back. Apparently I’m wrong.
If “household income” is technically after-tax in the US, I’d bet most people don’t know what. I didn’t.
Unless you’re actually looking at your IRS form for the previous year - it’s a lot easier just to say your salary + your spouse’s - vs. try to calculate the after tax income for both of you.