Catcha 22, with poll

Aug 17, 2009 10:18

...only 18 percent of Americans say the stimulus plan “has done anything to help improve their personal situation ( Read more... )

stimulus, catcha 22, economics

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Comments 15

songmonk August 17 2009, 18:21:22 UTC
Starting which paycheck would I have started seeing decreased withholding? I only recall one change in withholding in the past year, and they actually withheld *more* (by a few bucks).

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jpmassar August 17 2009, 18:48:17 UTC
I'm pretty sure it would have been paychecks that included pay from April onward.

You might want to check it out. Maybe someone made an error.

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songmonk August 18 2009, 06:26:17 UTC
I just checked. Starting with my May 8 paycheck, my state withholding *increased* by $6.51. Nothing else -- including the federal withholding -- changed.

This "stimulus" is what -- a tax cut? If so, then I should still get what's coming to me (minus the time value of money) when I file my taxes next year, yes?

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jpmassar August 18 2009, 06:47:55 UTC
The increase in state withholding makes sense

That your federal withholding didn't decrease does not.

Yes, you should still get what is coming to you next April.
And/or you can try and find out from your company's treasurer
why you didn't see a change downward in Federal withholding in April.

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ext_1460 August 17 2009, 19:43:40 UTC
I had to go look. No change in federal withholding for me, but there was a bump after I hit the social security cap. Not that it matters - my spending is based on longer-term forecasting than my current paycheck.

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schmengie August 17 2009, 19:53:35 UTC
i did notice and it was so small as to be almost irrelevant (at least for me). I think it was like $20-$30 per biweekly paycheck but I am not totally sure.

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jpmassar August 17 2009, 20:36:35 UTC
Anecdotal proof!

And if you really aren't going to notice the $600, just send it on
this-a-way. I'll be happy to stimulate the economy with it.

(-:

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schmengie August 17 2009, 20:51:57 UTC
I didnt say it didnt go to use. All I said is it was small enough to not be relevant to me. I would have preferred getting a $600 check lump sum.

As more anecdotal proof..Carols dad sent her a $400 check as a house gift for us moving into a new home. She took that and went out and spent $425 as a direct result (math continues to be hard for Carol :-)).

Our spending habits have not changed based on the Obama cut

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In the theme of things ... freelikebeer August 18 2009, 00:08:29 UTC
don't you work, in a round-about way, in the health care field [via bio research?]

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Re: In the theme of things ... jpmassar August 18 2009, 03:53:56 UTC
In some extremely tenuous way, sort of maybe.
I'm writing code for a Professor of Biology who has an NSF grant
which is only meta-related to biology research.

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barking_iguana August 18 2009, 00:13:06 UTC
Our school district brought in a new math curriculum for next year. One that actually looks good enough so I can use it, instead of improvising all my lessons. No stimulus money was spent directly on that.

However, adapting that curriculum to the needs of the local and sate bureaucracy, as well as giving teachers some advanced familiarity with the material was well worthwhile. The stimulus bill paid for two weeks of training for about a third of the math teachers in the district, in which we both got practiced at teaching with the very different style the curriculum calls for and developed a lot of the needed boilerplate paperwork (which is largely attributable to NCLB) that all math teachers will have to use. That will allow the teachers to put more of their energy to actually teaching.

So two weeks of employment doing something remarkably useful.

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jpmassar August 18 2009, 03:57:07 UTC
High school math?

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barking_iguana August 18 2009, 15:19:43 UTC
Yes, that's my day job. Career #3 (first politics then programming came before) withe Career #4 around the corner.

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