Who grosses over $200k a year, anyways?

[Mercury]

yeah i think the 200k earners are the *regional elite* in most cases. they're not international jet-setters of course. but they're probably the prominant public figures in their hometowns like counsilmen, politicians, business owners, doctors. they're the people who make decisions.

[DubStyle311]

Originally Posted by verklingen

and that would also mean that a household composed of multiple income earners who earn close to 200k a year combined will not be individually subject to the same taxes as a single income earner who earns that alone, yes?

that wording was chosen by the poster, who perhaps may have mistakenly equated "income earner" with "household income." a source could clarify this, but as it stands the quote doesn't take away from the fact that those households who, if the quote is correct, earn close to 200k will not be subjected to the taxes you are talking about, which in turn means that even less than 5% (since there are assuredly more households with 200k gross income than single income earners who gross 200k alone) would be.

edit: so if anything, it's not comparing apples to oranges but single apples to bags of apples.

Thats incredibly convoluted logic if you ask me and even more vague than the original statistic. I don't think you can really tell much of anything from what you just said because because it relies on a ton of supposition.

[Flamingnun]

Originally Posted by JcP

whether or not you're as rich as people in the 70's comparatively does not change the fact that 200K is indeed rich by todays standards, as you are in the top 5% of the population.

The fact that only 5% of the population has that much money, only highlights the sheer amount of people earning a low income in america. Obviously $200k a year will seem rich to someone struggling to feed a family on $300 a week, as much as I'd like to argue that they're in the minority, i doubt that's the case, so going by the majority vote, yeah i'd guess 200k is rich.

It seems like this threads devolved into an argument over personal definition of rich rather than anything else... But yeah, I wouldn't say $200k is rich, as i mentioned it's well off, it easily allows a nice house, and a nice car, with vacations abroad abound. Although rich, by personal definition would be having more money than you could use, i'd struggle to live an ideal lifestyle with £98k.

[verklingen]

Originally Posted by dub

Thats incredibly convoluted logic if you ask me and even more vague than the original statistic. I don't think you can really tell much of anything from what you just said because because it relies on a ton of supposition.

if the stat is based on household income and the taxes being discussed in this thread are based on individual income, why does it not stand to reason that less than 5% of income earners will be subject to these taxes? what's convoluted about that? is it unreasonable to assume that there are more households whose income earners gross nearly 200k combined than there are individual income earners who gross nearly 200k alone?

edit: and yes, this is all based on the assumption that the stat is correct and it pertains to gross household income rather than individual income. if that's the case, i'm only pointing out that it's not comparing apples to oranges as you said.