Oct. 27th, 2010 01:14 pm
Rich man's world
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
textualdevianceSo, a couple of nights ago, D mentioned that he and a few of our other friends were discussing the income tax measure coming up for a vote this year (1098, which would create a state income tax for the first time in WA, but only on individuals making more than $200k, or couples making $400k.)
Said friends apparently asked him, "Well, you live with rich people. What do they think?"
D told them that no, we wouldn't be affected by the tax--not even close--but still, the whole thing did kind of take me aback when he told me.
By the standards I had when M and I started dating years ago, I would definitely consider myself rich, now. Back then, the biggest reason we suddenly moved from Portland to Medford was for a job offer that was eventually going to pay him almost $45k. In the condition we were in at the time, that was huge money (and of course, a few months later, his paychecks started bouncing, I couldn't get a good job and we ended up on food stamps.) Adjusting for inflation, that would be about $65k in today's money, which is comfortable, but certainly not rich for this area (it's right about the median income, actually.)
We do make a lot more than that now, though. Depending on variables like M's bonuses, whether we've sold any company stock and how much I'm working, we've averaged about twice that in the last few years. We've never crossed the $200k mark, but we've consistently been in six figures for several years.
Whether that's capital-R rich, I don't know. I'm not sure I can really say, actually. Obviously, on a global scale, I totally am, as are most people in first-world countries. But in terms of a more-direct comparison on a national, state or local level? I dunno. The cost of living here is high enough that we're not sitting on piles of free cash, at least, and I certainly don't feel rich when I look at things like the adoption probably costing us ~$25k (though I do know that being able to consider that at all puts us well ahead of a lot of people.)
Our new house feels like a palace in many ways, but we'd never have been able to afford something remotely like that if we tried to live closer in to work (median price for a 4bd house here is around $400k, and finding something in good repair under $300k is basically impossible), and we did have to stretch quite a bit to make it (we drained all of our investments and even took a loan from M's 401k, which we just finally paid off last month.)
Still, it's a dream house for many, even around here, and a dream they'll likely never get to. Same with a lot of the other luxuries we have: Cars that are less than 10 years old (and paid off), high-end electronic entertainment, relatively frequent air travel, a regular yard-care service, etc.
I'm well aware of how lucky we are. The me who grew up in a single-wide trailer on an acre of dirt in the middle of nowhere still can't believe her good fortune to have married a guy who ended up having lucrative job skills (even if he was only making $7 an hour when we started dating.) But I also know this is pretty close to as good as it's going to get for us, and it was really kind of an accident of fate that we got here.
Yeah, M's job (and the mountains of effort he's put into it) is a big factor, but bigger than that was the stock bonus he got when he was first hired, because the company stock price more or less exploded in the few years after that. (That's what got us into our first house, actually.) Now that the market has cooled, big gains like that aren't going to happen anymore. M will undoubtedly still be getting promotions and raises here and there, and I hope eventually I'll get a real job instead of this endless string of contract gigs, but I don't foresee us massively outpacing inflation.
So overall, even though we're definitely a few steps above a lot of folks, including locals, we're not really in the upper echelons on an apples-to-apples level. The chances of us ever getting to a point at which that law would affect us, for instance, are basically zero (hell, we only occasionally cross into the 28% bracket for federal, depending on what our Schedule A adds up to.)
But really? If we ever did cross that line, or if they changed the law so we counted, we'd be happy to do it. Because not only do I realize we're lucky, but I also realize that we'd never, ever have gotten here without a lot of taxpayer-funded programs that helped us out when we were skint. Everything from free public education to Pell Grants to food stamps has helped us along this path, and I'd never want to deny those opportunities to anyone else.
Whether I'm rich or not is a matter of opinion, but regardless of how one defines that, I'm happy to do my share, and would be no matter how much or how little I made. Personally, I wish far less of my money went to fund new and better ways to kill people overseas, but aside from that, eh. A measure like this, whether it would affect me or not, is designed in part to help save school funding and other critcal services that are suffering due to the overall downturn (which started ages ago, and one can thank GOP economic policies for it.) That's worth it, and any "rich" person who thinks it isn't doesn't deserve a dime of what they have.
No-one--absolutely no-one--is entirely self-made and didn't have to rely in part on the efforts of others to get where they are, and paying back what you've received is part of the bargain of living in civilized society. The more you've recieved--such as, from the efforts of minimum-wage workers in the factory that's lining your pockets with profit--the more you need to pay back.
Said friends apparently asked him, "Well, you live with rich people. What do they think?"
D told them that no, we wouldn't be affected by the tax--not even close--but still, the whole thing did kind of take me aback when he told me.
By the standards I had when M and I started dating years ago, I would definitely consider myself rich, now. Back then, the biggest reason we suddenly moved from Portland to Medford was for a job offer that was eventually going to pay him almost $45k. In the condition we were in at the time, that was huge money (and of course, a few months later, his paychecks started bouncing, I couldn't get a good job and we ended up on food stamps.) Adjusting for inflation, that would be about $65k in today's money, which is comfortable, but certainly not rich for this area (it's right about the median income, actually.)
We do make a lot more than that now, though. Depending on variables like M's bonuses, whether we've sold any company stock and how much I'm working, we've averaged about twice that in the last few years. We've never crossed the $200k mark, but we've consistently been in six figures for several years.
Whether that's capital-R rich, I don't know. I'm not sure I can really say, actually. Obviously, on a global scale, I totally am, as are most people in first-world countries. But in terms of a more-direct comparison on a national, state or local level? I dunno. The cost of living here is high enough that we're not sitting on piles of free cash, at least, and I certainly don't feel rich when I look at things like the adoption probably costing us ~$25k (though I do know that being able to consider that at all puts us well ahead of a lot of people.)
Our new house feels like a palace in many ways, but we'd never have been able to afford something remotely like that if we tried to live closer in to work (median price for a 4bd house here is around $400k, and finding something in good repair under $300k is basically impossible), and we did have to stretch quite a bit to make it (we drained all of our investments and even took a loan from M's 401k, which we just finally paid off last month.)
Still, it's a dream house for many, even around here, and a dream they'll likely never get to. Same with a lot of the other luxuries we have: Cars that are less than 10 years old (and paid off), high-end electronic entertainment, relatively frequent air travel, a regular yard-care service, etc.
I'm well aware of how lucky we are. The me who grew up in a single-wide trailer on an acre of dirt in the middle of nowhere still can't believe her good fortune to have married a guy who ended up having lucrative job skills (even if he was only making $7 an hour when we started dating.) But I also know this is pretty close to as good as it's going to get for us, and it was really kind of an accident of fate that we got here.
Yeah, M's job (and the mountains of effort he's put into it) is a big factor, but bigger than that was the stock bonus he got when he was first hired, because the company stock price more or less exploded in the few years after that. (That's what got us into our first house, actually.) Now that the market has cooled, big gains like that aren't going to happen anymore. M will undoubtedly still be getting promotions and raises here and there, and I hope eventually I'll get a real job instead of this endless string of contract gigs, but I don't foresee us massively outpacing inflation.
So overall, even though we're definitely a few steps above a lot of folks, including locals, we're not really in the upper echelons on an apples-to-apples level. The chances of us ever getting to a point at which that law would affect us, for instance, are basically zero (hell, we only occasionally cross into the 28% bracket for federal, depending on what our Schedule A adds up to.)
But really? If we ever did cross that line, or if they changed the law so we counted, we'd be happy to do it. Because not only do I realize we're lucky, but I also realize that we'd never, ever have gotten here without a lot of taxpayer-funded programs that helped us out when we were skint. Everything from free public education to Pell Grants to food stamps has helped us along this path, and I'd never want to deny those opportunities to anyone else.
Whether I'm rich or not is a matter of opinion, but regardless of how one defines that, I'm happy to do my share, and would be no matter how much or how little I made. Personally, I wish far less of my money went to fund new and better ways to kill people overseas, but aside from that, eh. A measure like this, whether it would affect me or not, is designed in part to help save school funding and other critcal services that are suffering due to the overall downturn (which started ages ago, and one can thank GOP economic policies for it.) That's worth it, and any "rich" person who thinks it isn't doesn't deserve a dime of what they have.
No-one--absolutely no-one--is entirely self-made and didn't have to rely in part on the efforts of others to get where they are, and paying back what you've received is part of the bargain of living in civilized society. The more you've recieved--such as, from the efforts of minimum-wage workers in the factory that's lining your pockets with profit--the more you need to pay back.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
no subject
Cost of living and income keep pace with each other fairly well on a regional basis, as far as most people are concerned. But there is a point at which it stops. A perfect example is the cost of gas, which is more or less the same for just about everyone. That $3/gallon, even if you're filling up three times a week, is nothing to someone making 6 figures. But to someone trying to get by on $10/hour? That's a huge expense.
And I think it's those people--the ones whose basic costs of living like food, utilities, etc. have gone about as high as they're going to go relative to their income--who need to pay more no matter where they live. People who are paying only 10% of their income for food should be paying more than people who have no choice but to pay 25%.
no subject
*shakes head*
no subject
There are actually a fair number of people who live in Vancouver, near the Oregon border, to avoid paying Oregon's state income tax while also availing themselves of its lack of sales tax.