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Your example of the guy who has $100K in student loans and is making a $100K salary in New York is a good example, but I think we very much disagree on how he s

Your example of the guy who has $100K in student loans and is making a $100K salary in New York is a good example, but I think we very much disagree on how he should be treated. If he's living in NYC, his take-home is about $68k after taxes and he's laying out $3500/month in rent for a one bedroom and paying $1k/month for the loans. That leaves him $1100/month for utilities, medical, and, you know, food if he wants to eat. I know there are plenty of people who are worse off, but this guy is working a non-trivial job just to tread water. Why do you have so little sympathy for him?

rayiner 7y ago
Because (1) he's objectively well off, having a one bedroom apartment to himself in New York itself being a sign of prosperity and privilege; and (2) because he's around the 90th percentile income level, and if we don't tax him heavily we cannot afford an expansive welfare state. People in the top 25% but outside the top 1% earn half of all income, $5 trillion, 2.5x as much as the top 1%. You need high taxes on that group to support an expansive welfare state. In Germany, Mr. NYC would be taking home $57,000, and he'd pay 19% VAT on cocktails in Munich.
acheron 7y ago
Living in a high cost of living area is voluntary consumption just as much as leasing a new BMW or going on European vacations twice a year. If he wants to stop "just treading water", then he can move somewhere else, such as a place that's not in the top 3 most expensive areas in the country; just like the guy with the BMW can buy a used Honda instead.
- jqgatsby 7y ago
  That's a common fallacy. Places that have high paying jobs usually have high cost of living. You can't typically command high salaries in cheaper areas, but people seem to think that just by virtue of living in a certain area you are defacto well-off. Anyway, this hypothetical guy isn't helping my case, because we can either add or subtract virtues to make him more or less sympathetic. As someone who matched this description personally, I can tell you I did not feel "upper middle class" by any stretch of the imagination, which is what I was responding to.

rayiner 7y ago

Because (1) he's objectively well off, having a one bedroom apartment to himself in New York itself being a sign of prosperity and privilege; and (2) because he's around the 90th percentile income level, and if we don't tax him heavily we cannot afford an expansive welfare state. People in the top 25% but outside the top 1% earn half of all income, $5 trillion, 2.5x as much as the top 1%. You need high taxes on that group to support an expansive welfare state. In Germany, Mr. NYC would be taking home $57,000, and he'd pay 19% VAT on cocktails in Munich.

acheron 7y ago

Living in a high cost of living area is voluntary consumption just as much as leasing a new BMW or going on European vacations twice a year. If he wants to stop "just treading water", then he can move somewhere else, such as a place that's not in the top 3 most expensive areas in the country; just like the guy with the BMW can buy a used Honda instead.

jqgatsby 7y ago
That's a common fallacy. Places that have high paying jobs usually have high cost of living. You can't typically command high salaries in cheaper areas, but people seem to think that just by virtue of living in a certain area you are defacto well-off. Anyway, this hypothetical guy isn't helping my case, because we can either add or subtract virtues to make him more or less sympathetic. As someone who matched this description personally, I can tell you I did not feel "upper middle class" by any stretch of the imagination, which is what I was responding to.