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Where Americans—Rich and Poor—Spent Every Dollar in 2012
The Atlantic ^ | 09/16/2013 | Derek Thompson

Posted on 09/17/2013 10:42:49 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd

Here it is, fresh from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: all of American spending in one big color wheel.

~snip~

For the poor, food, clothes, and housing account for more than 60 percent of all spending. The rich have more left over for leisure, insurance, and savings.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: economics
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To: LostInBayport

I think most people don’t have a clue how big a chunk of their “income” goes for taxes. They need to include the part of FICA and MEDICARE / MEDICADE that are paid by their employer as well. For some of us we and the employer are one and the same and each quarter we damn well know exactly how much we are paying in taxes!

EVERYBODY NEEDS TO WRITE A CHECK ONCE A QUARTER FOR TAXES!

It is easy to spend more in taxes than you do on yourself when you alone are saving for your old age and paying both sides of Social Security and Medicare. You live on as little as possible and save the rest.


41 posted on 09/17/2013 11:48:46 AM PDT by Sequoyah101
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To: cripplecreek

It was only after Big Government got into health care that prices exploded, just as in getting a college education. Anything that Big Government touches turns into poor quality at outrageous prices.


42 posted on 09/17/2013 11:51:08 AM PDT by txrefugee
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To: Sequoyah101
For some of us we and the employer are one and the same and each quarter we damn well know exactly how much we are paying in taxes!

My first year of self-employment was revelatory in this respect. Eye-opening and horrifying.

EVERYBODY NEEDS TO WRITE A CHECK ONCE A QUARTER FOR TAXES!

I think it would create enough of an attitude shift to allow us to once again outnumber the takers and perhaps even create enough anger to cause a reduction in the size of government at all levels. The 'slow bleed' format of taxes being deducted before the money gets into the hand of the earner is insidious.
43 posted on 09/17/2013 12:00:16 PM PDT by LostInBayport (When there are more people riding in the cart than there are pulling it, the cart stops moving...)
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To: LostInBayport

I always knew how much taxes were and how much of it was FICA medicare and have always considered the employer side paid money that would be available for someone, maybe me?

I think it would cause a revolution that is long over due if people had to write checks for ALL their taxes.

The drones think self-employed just make tons of money but have no idea what the self-employed have to either pay for or simply can’t get, like disability, that employees are provided. NO Idea and most don’t even know how to add it up.


44 posted on 09/17/2013 12:08:49 PM PDT by Sequoyah101
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To: jdege

That’s what people should get instead of FOOD STAMPS!


45 posted on 09/17/2013 12:12:25 PM PDT by goodnesswins (R.I.P. Doherty, Smith, Stevens, Woods.)
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To: sten; GeronL; Responsibility2nd; Paladin2; Sequoyah101; LostInBayport
If you click on the Bureau of Labor Statistics link, it will take you to a breakout of the numbers.

Since they're using $65,596 for an average income before taxes in 2012, and total expenditures of $51,442 for the same period, it seems to me that both taxes and some savings would be implied to be contained in the $14,154 difference.

Mind you however, consumers ultimately pay ALL tax receipts, whether corporate, sales, income, or usage. In fact, if you take all taxes received by the government, 2.7T, and divide the number by the number of households in America (114,761,359), the federal taxes paid by each household is about $23,500; that's 36% of what the BLS claims these households earned. Most of the federal government waste and resulting burden on the economy is hidden, and used to be for good reason - not to sure it matters too much anymore though to our dumbed down citizenry.

This doesn't include local or state sales, usage, or income taxes, or the trillion plus extra, the federal government indebts each of these households to annually to meet its recent expenditure level shortfalls!.

46 posted on 09/17/2013 12:13:51 PM PDT by Errant
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To: Errant

bump


47 posted on 09/17/2013 1:26:46 PM PDT by GeronL
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To: cripplecreek

Same story with taxes. My property taxes have gone from 2 weeks of income to 3 months of income.


48 posted on 09/17/2013 1:36:00 PM PDT by bgill (This reply was mined before it was posted.)
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To: txrefugee

When I got my degree, college courses were $4 an hour. Today, the flat rate semester fee is $5000 or about $400 an hour. On campus parking was $15 a semester but today it’s $700. Wages have not increased at that rate.


49 posted on 09/17/2013 1:48:08 PM PDT by bgill (This reply was mined before it was posted.)
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To: bgill

When I was a kid sales tax was 3% of all sales. Today it is almost 10% on all sales... that means the REAL cost of local government has gone up 3 times the rate of inflation.

We had better services 50 years ago. Better schools, more adequate roads, better libraries, better programs, more reliable public services... all better and it cost 1/3 as much.

I wish it would all just melt down and fail to start over. It is impossible to fix.


50 posted on 09/17/2013 6:47:31 PM PDT by Sequoyah101
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