Also something I've not heard someone mention - what if you make say $150,000 and expect a raise over the next few years?
I hear you. I was making 90 grand a year. The company and business that I was in took a turn for the worse. I was out of work for 2 years and we lost everything 2 years ago I found another job, I am making about 50 grand a year, things are tight, but I have started my own business which is about to take off and quite possibly make millions...... why would I want that if robbing hoodwink kerry gets elected, why do the dems want to destroy the one thing this country has, Opportunity? It's why the immigrants came here.
This is the whole entire lie of the democratic drive to induce class envy. The folks most of us shoudl be jealous of are ourselves.
Economists contribute to this by their own shallow statistics. Consider two single school teacher starting at age 24. Their household income will start at $23,000 per year or some such. Years later, they get married, have kids, rise through the ranks of the schools system and at age 55 are administrators with a household income of $145,000 per year or some such. [not counting their considerable vested pension benefits].
The entire f'in middle class starts off young at low salaries and progressess through age and ranks up the income ladder. The more meaningful statistic would be where people stand on a plot of household income of a family of 4 vs their age.
People who make lifestyle choices to work seasonally, or who chose to remain single or involved in other domestic "arrangments" I don't think are so relevant for societal purposes, but fall into the statistics.
Your 35 year old socialist perpetual graduate student with a stipend of $12,000 per year does not belong in the statics pile, no matter how much noise he contributes to the DNC.
Basically, he's telling people that if you're close to $200,000, there's no incentive to "get over the hump." Might as well become mediocre and stay where you are!
Of course, that's what our tax system is all about.