food for thought
Hypothetically I could take two years to go back to school, come back to this company and at the lowest starting salary for a developer save slightly more money in the following two years than I could save if I worked for those 4 years at my current salary with a compounded yearly 5% raise (which will actually be more like 2-3%). This projection assumes that my living expenses remain constant and doesn't include the cost of said schooling. The not increasing my cost of living would deffinitely be difficult but it's totally doable...I've done a good job of reducing it every year for the past 3, even with moving to a more expensive city, so I'm not too worried about that. Not only would I have more money saved but my purchasing power for property would be almost three times what it is now. That is crazy...I wish I had figured this out years ago...
Alternately if I could find a job that paid $15 an hour and work 25 hours a week I could maintain my same current standard of spending (same standard of living - putting anything into savings) and have essentially 2 more days free per week...I feel like there must be $15 an hour part time jobs out there some place that don't totally suck.
hrmmm, time or savings? Tough choice.
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Also is it just me or does the fact that our 'progressive' tax system go up 10% when you're income rises across the 28K mark but only goes up 3% when you cross the 68K mark or 2% when you cross the 311K mark seem odd. I mean we have 5 brackets the lowest at 10% and the highest at 33% and the highest difference in brackets right around the poverty line making it that much more difficult to go from not making ends meet to being able to get ahead. I mean if we're going to hit someone with a 10% jump for making a bit more money it would make sense to do so when their income is well above meeting their daily needs and noth right about when meeting those needs may or may not be in question.
for reference:
the 2003 federal income tax brackets
It makes even less sense if you consider the fact that itemizing deductions means people with incomes over 50K raise their taxable incomes more slowly than those who make less.
One last interesting fact to note according to table 4 of this report by the Congressional Budget Office table, a full 51% of the tax paying population's taxable income is 30K a year or less. That means over half of all people are staring at that 10% tax hike like a great economic wall keeping the poor out of the middle economic kingdom.
Here's some interesting numbers:
Say you work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year (no paid vacation) making:
$13 an hour => 26,000/year - 15% => $22,100
$14.50 an hour => 29,000/year - 25% => $21,750
so much for that 11.5% raise...
To actually get that 11% raise you'd need to make:
$16.42 an hour => 32,855/year - 25% => $24,641.50.
Which to your boss is a crazy 26% raise...
One last thing before I get off the soap box. Poorer people spend a much larger percentage of their income -- or conversely those who already have the basics in life met are more apt to save extra money. So all this BS about a tax cut for those who make alot of money helping to stimulate the economy is total crap. Give the money to the bottom 50% of income earners and most of it will be circulated back into the economy. Give it to the top 50% (those who make over 40K per year) and most of it will be saved or invested, which by all means should be encouraged but does squat to get the economy going and create jobs.
Alternately if I could find a job that paid $15 an hour and work 25 hours a week I could maintain my same current standard of spending (same standard of living - putting anything into savings) and have essentially 2 more days free per week...I feel like there must be $15 an hour part time jobs out there some place that don't totally suck.
hrmmm, time or savings? Tough choice.
---
Also is it just me or does the fact that our 'progressive' tax system go up 10% when you're income rises across the 28K mark but only goes up 3% when you cross the 68K mark or 2% when you cross the 311K mark seem odd. I mean we have 5 brackets the lowest at 10% and the highest at 33% and the highest difference in brackets right around the poverty line making it that much more difficult to go from not making ends meet to being able to get ahead. I mean if we're going to hit someone with a 10% jump for making a bit more money it would make sense to do so when their income is well above meeting their daily needs and noth right about when meeting those needs may or may not be in question.
for reference:
the 2003 federal income tax brackets
It makes even less sense if you consider the fact that itemizing deductions means people with incomes over 50K raise their taxable incomes more slowly than those who make less.
One last interesting fact to note according to table 4 of this report by the Congressional Budget Office table, a full 51% of the tax paying population's taxable income is 30K a year or less. That means over half of all people are staring at that 10% tax hike like a great economic wall keeping the poor out of the middle economic kingdom.
Here's some interesting numbers:
Say you work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year (no paid vacation) making:
$13 an hour => 26,000/year - 15% => $22,100
$14.50 an hour => 29,000/year - 25% => $21,750
so much for that 11.5% raise...
To actually get that 11% raise you'd need to make:
$16.42 an hour => 32,855/year - 25% => $24,641.50.
Which to your boss is a crazy 26% raise...
One last thing before I get off the soap box. Poorer people spend a much larger percentage of their income -- or conversely those who already have the basics in life met are more apt to save extra money. So all this BS about a tax cut for those who make alot of money helping to stimulate the economy is total crap. Give the money to the bottom 50% of income earners and most of it will be circulated back into the economy. Give it to the top 50% (those who make over 40K per year) and most of it will be saved or invested, which by all means should be encouraged but does squat to get the economy going and create jobs.