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Social security is 15% of a poor person's income alone. Medicare is another 6%. At 30k/year, you additionally pay 13% federal income tax. That means that the am
by emmett 18y ago
Social security is 15% of a poor person's income alone. Medicare is another 6%. At 30k/year, you additionally pay 13% federal income tax. That means that the amount of money from your paycheck going to the federal government totals 34%.
A poor person making $30k/year is paying 34% of their income to the federal government, before any other taxes. It's not all officially named "income tax", but it's paid as a percentage of income which meets the definition of an income tax. (http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aincome+tax&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aincome+tax&ie=ut...)
- eds 18y agoWhere are your numbers coming from? The employee's social security tax is 6.2%, and medicare is 1.45%. You can argue that the employee indirectly pays the employer's portion as well, but you specifically said that 15% comes "from your paycheck," which is wrong. For the record, I think even my numbers are unconscionably high.
- emmett 18y agoUnless you don't believe that wages are set by the market, the employer's portion definitely comes from your paycheck. If you dropped the social security tax on the employer side, wages would rise (the employer doesn't care whether the money goes to the government or the employee). It's effectively an income tax. The accounting is slightly different, but that's just the name we give it. You can see another example of this in that the self-employed pay the full tax - in the limit of one person, the lack of a distinction becomes obvious. http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/taxRates.html http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/taxRates.html
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]