(Untitled)

[kweeket]

Obama
McCain

If you make
you'd save
you'd save

less than $19,000
$567
$21

$19,000-$37,600
$892
$118

$37,600-$66,400
$1118
$325

$66,400-$111,600
$1264
$994

$111,600-$161,000
$2135
$2584

$161,000-$227,000
$2796
$4437

Top 5% of

Comments

[frogger414]

I appreciate your input and being completely fair on all sides. The points I enjoyed the most are:

Thirdly it is fair to say that McCain's tax plan disproportionally rewards wealthy people and Obama's tax plan disproportionally rewards poor peopole. Neither tax plan does much for the middle class.

What is middle class anyway? I know that I am middle class, but is there a wage range that would help me identify middle class? I should probably know that but I want to get a better idea. But I completely agree. You can't favor the rich or favor the poor; there has to be some middle ground.

Finally we should assume that none of these plans would pass congress in their current form. These are politicians making plans up to win an election; they are not reality based ideas.

Why hasn't this been said earlier? I never thought of this point and personally it is a really important point. Ugh. I guess I too am caught up on the hype with the debates, articles, interviews, etc., and while they can talk all they want about what they want to do, getting it passed, etc., is a whole other issue. Thanks for writing this.

[kweeket]

Middle class is weird. Did you see the NY Times series on class? You enter you statistics and see where you compare against other Americans. Class wasn't determined by just how much money you make, but also greatly depended on your profession and education level. And Wikipedia defines class mostly based on profession: "Constituting roughly 15% to 20% of households is the upper or professional middle class consisting of highly educated, salaried professionals and managers. Constituting roughly one third of households is the lower middle class consisting mostly of semi-professionals, skilled craftsmen and lower level management."

But if you want a wage range, the national median annual income is $32,000; $46,000 for households.

[miguelberta]

wow, i ran that and the results surprised me. I am much more fortunate that I previously thought.....

[miguelberta]

you are welcome. thanks for the kind words. i try to be fair to all sides on issues of economcis. Really no party has the high ground on economics; there is plenty of blame to go around and if one party was "correct" they'd win every election. I guess voters just need to decide what they think is best based on their expierences, judgements, etc and try not to get caught up in talk radio, TV news, attack ads, etc...

Politicians have it rough when they run for office and are subjected by voters to fix a huge problem (like taxes, education, spending, environment, etc)that has been around for hundreds of years and they are supposed to fix it within a 90 second soundbite or debate talking point in the context of trying to win an election.

As far as class if you don't know which class you are in then you are in the middle class. if you are upper class or lower class you'd know it. i'm not sure the range. It probably depends on where you live as cost of living is different all over the place...