Interesting Income & Tax statistics

[plural]

Source 1 & Source 2

Average Pre-tax family income by percentile
(in projected 1999 US Dollars)

The Wealthiest 20% of Americans (23.6 Million families) earn an average of $132,000 per year
The Upper Middle Class 20% of Americans (22.6 Million families) earn an average of $53,000
The Middle Class 20% of Americans (22.5 Million families) earn an average of $35,400
The Lower Middle Class 20% (23.3 Million families) earn an average of $21,200
The Poorest 20% (22.7 Million families) earn an average of $8,400

The national average for all (116 million) families is $49,500

The Wealthiest 1% of Americans (1.2 million families) earn an average of $719,000
The Wealthiest 5% of Americans (5.9 million families) earns an average of $276,000
The Wealthiest 10% of Americans (11.9 Million families) earns an average of $188,000



Who shoulders the burden?

Legend


Income Tax Burden (1977-1995)


1999 Projected Tax Burden




or to put it more succinctly

out of every income tax dollar that is collected

the poorest pay 1 cent
the lower middle class pay 5 cent
the middle class pays 11 cents
the upper middle class pays 19 cents
and the wealthiest americans pay 65 cents

the wealthiest one percent of americans (or 1.2 million families)
pay 21 cents out of every income tax dollar collected

as much as I am not a big fan of Bush
I have to admit these numbers
make his tax cut plan seem quite a bit more fair

The wealthiest 20% earn roughly 53.7% of the taxed income
but pay 65% percent of the income tax collected

80% or roughly 91.1 Million American families
earn 46.3% of the taxable income
pay 35% of the income tax collected

20% or 23.6 Million American families
generate 116% of the income of the other 80%

Each of the 23.6 million wealthiest american families
generates on average 2.276/million% of the total income in the US

While the remainder of 91.1 million familes which makes up for the rest of you
generates on average 0.5/million% of the total income in the US

Whichs means that average wealthiest family (20%) generates 4.5 times
the income of the average american family (80%)

The Average 80% family pays 0.38/million% of the income tax collected
The Average 20% family pays 2.75/million% of the income tax collected
or 7.25 times as much as the rest of you.

So while they earn 4.5 times as much as you
They pay 7.25 times as much in taxes

This points to a fairly large income gap in the US
and while depending on your politics
you may feel it is the deserved result of industrious
or a sign of larger social problems




Below are the numbers which I used for the total and per capita income % statistics
which were generated by multiplying the average income for a group
by the population of that group to obtain rough total income for the populations
[yes I am aware of the inadequacies of the method, but it accurate enough]


$3,115,200,000,000 Highest Quintile
$1,197,800,000,000 Fourth Quintile
$796,500,000,000 Middle Quintile
$493,960,000,000 Second Quintile
$190,680,000,000 Lowest Quintile

80% subtotal
$2,678,940,000,000

Total:
$5,794,140,000,000

Comments

[trishylicious.livejournal.com]

the only problem is that the wealthiest 10-15% control the incomes of about the 75% or more of the rest... if incomes were distributed more evenly, then more people could pony up a better part themselves and the disparity might not be so large. I'm not saying every single rich person is taking advantage of every single poor person, but for the most part, many of the upper classes employ the lower-classes with low-paying jobs that barely allow them to make ends meet.

[plural.livejournal.com]

actually

according to the government statistics provided above, the wealthiest 20% recieve only 53.7% of the income taxed, however they pay 65% of the tax.

now personally, I think our progressive tax system is a good one, but it surprised me just how much the "bitching" was unfounded

[trishylicious.livejournal.com]

I read what you wrote and at first I thought, "Oh wow!" but then I thought about it from a different perspective and replied ~

what I mean is that the wealthiest people, even though they might end up paying the most tax in the end, still control the incomes of many of us who aren't lucky enough to be as prosperous as they are.

e.g. 53.7% of $1,000,000,000 = $53.7 million take home pay
65% (35% tax bracket) of $1,000,000 = $650,000 take home pay
67% (33% tb) of $250K = $167.5K take home pay
72% (38% tb) of $100K = $72K take home pay
75% (25% tb) of $40,000 = $30,000 take home pay
85% (15% tb) of $15,000 = $12,750 take home (barely enough to live)

The people making $15K, $25K, $40K are often at the mercy, jobwise, of the people making lots of dinero. Most of the big income makers are probably big bosses of huge companies - e.g. employers. (Whereas the lower-paid people are often employees, although there might be some independent workers in there.) If the higher-paid people wanted to pay less taxes, they could pay their employees more to distribute the burden better. $650,000 is about 50x more than $12,750.

that's all I was saying. :)

[trishylicious.livejournal.com]

oops wrote 38% where i meant to type 28%

p.s. i just meant this to provoke a discussion, not to pick on you. :)

[plural.livejournal.com]

*grin*

yeah I figured it was a typo

and

excellent cause thats why I posted it in the first place *smile*

[plural.livejournal.com]

ahh

yeah I see what you mean

of course there is two problems there

one is that people will object to higher taxes even if they make more money

and considering 80% of the country pays roughly a third of the cost of government

getting those 80% to agree to a tax hike is unlikely

secondly, in order to make it worth while to the wealthy, it would have to be a net gain for them, and still provide the necessary tax base to the government.

the way taxes are currently structured, with your employer paying payroll taxes based on aggregate of their employees salaries, trying to increase the tax base by increasing salaries would be prohibitively expensive.