My mother and stepfather make more than that with my mother making most of it. My mother is a professional speaker and author and spends 150+ days on the road plus basically ever day working often till 2am or so and she is 61. My stepfather is a college professor. His contribution is easy money in comparison but they both work hard and went years without much income at all to get where they are. They certainly didn’t have any money when I was growing up.
My father makes many times but he earns it the old fashioned way. He is truly rich and I guess that is the type that most people like to target. He didn’t always have it though by any stretch. It was only during the last few years that some massive natural gas discoveries happened that made that possible.
My ex-inlaws also make many times that through working their ass off and taking risks over and over that don’t always pan out. They have never distinguished between their working and personal life at least among friends and things like travel or discretionary time. It is all just one big bundle. Some of their friends are among the elite rich which is a couple of levels above that but not the super-rich. They all self-made and work their asses off too. Those are the types of people that really do create jobs because they invent whole new businesses and run with them from start to finish on a large scale.
That’s because everyone born in this country was born into a country where they could acquire such wealth. It’s their drive and discipline and recognition of opportunity and willingness to take personal risk that has set them apart and made them wealthy, not the advantages that everyone is privvy to.
Look, most conservatives are not averse to paying taxes to operate the government and provide the infrastructure that we all need and benefit from. Where we object to increased taxes is in areas where taxation is used to redistribute wealth from those who’ve earned it to those who haven’t, or in areas where they government is trying to make us dependent upon it for our welfare.
I should add that 250K is a really, really low barrier to be considered rich in many parts of the country. You won’t be hurting anywhere as long as you manage your money well and live within your means but putting the descriptor ‘rich’ on it is inviting imagery that simply isn’t possible on that income. A married pair of engineers or corporate middle-managers can easily hit that figure. That will buy you a decent house in a good Boston suburb but not one of the nicest ones and you still wouldn’t be able to afford many areas. You couldn’t afford to send multiple kids to private schools all the way through college unless that was your only priority and you wanted to step down greatly in other areas. You could take vacations but not go 1st class all the way. That income level is just comfortable upper-middle class.
I suppose the flip side of that is that it take some effort to become an engineer or corporate middle manager. And in having those sort of jobs it affords you the ability to live in urban areas where there are more opportunities to earn an even higher income.
What’s this “we” stuff. You’re a starving artist. You might be a conservative but you don’t make anywhere near $250k per year and don’t pay anywhere near these kinds of taxes.
It is to laugh that everyone born into the US is equal and has an equal chance at a piece of the pie. Someone born in the US does have a better chance than most other countries, but that doesn’t mean things are equal.
None, but honestly, I wouldn’t have a problem if people I knew had to pay higher taxes. I get tired of hearing people who make more money than I do complain about not having money, especially when they go on vacation all the time, constantly buying new stuff, etc.
Also, the only people who I know that are close are these people who will throw out multi-hundred dollar items if their pet pees on them. I know for sure I wouldn’t feel bad if that family had to scrape by and buy some Febreeze or pet urine remover.
A good friend of mine is rich. To clarify, I once asked him about his amassed wealth. Instead of gauchely giving me a number, he said, “oh, I don’t have to work anymore, I just really like my [really high paying] job.” So I don’t know for a fact how much he makes, but given his job title and profession, I am pretty stating that it’s over 250k. We’ve talked about the economy, finance, and politics, and I’m pretty sure he would gladly pay more taxes.
I also know some other people who might qualify, but I don’t know their salaries. (lawyers, a doctor, some Wall Street types)
First of all, don’t you live in Hoboken?
Second, you are exaggerating the cost of living around here. My wife and I live in Jersey City. Our combined salary is way under $100,000. We have lots of savings. I have friends whose salaries are less than ours who live in Hoboken, Jersey City, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. (grad students). None of these people are “uncomfortable.” Maybe we are all just frugal?
Well, yes and no. You’re more than correct that 250K is a low barrier to be considered rich, but I’d take it further and say it is not even in the realm. 250K affords a comfortable lifestyle, quite comfortable, but it is nowhere near rich.
That said, someone with a 250K salary, little to no debt and a 20 percent down payment can relatively easily afford a million dollar house, the monthly payment for which, with moderate property taxes and insurance, by my calculation, works out to be approximately $6,500 per month. Definitely doable. Is a million dollar house in Boston one of the nicer ones? I’d think so, but I don’t live in Boston. My wife and I never had children, so that is a factor in our favor in what we can afford and where our priorities are placed. As far as vacations are concerned, lately, as we’ve gotten older, we try to take a solid week once a year. Sometimes it doesn’t work out because of work commitments and failing to coordinate schedules, but when we do, it is, as you say, 1st class all the way, as will be our upcoming trip to Hawaii next month.
You are, however, correct in your contention that 250K is simply upper-middle class.
I already talked about this in another post where I talked about how funny it will be when Democrat politicians eventually raise the poor people income level and lower the rich people income level to the point where they eventually pass each other and the poor people end up paying taxes for the rich people.
Now you’re just being silly. In the first place I didn’t say “we”; I said “they” and “their”.
Secondly, you don’t know what I am or what I do or what my income is, and even if you did it has nothing to do with what we’re discussing. Or do you feel I’m only qualified to object to high taxes on the so-called rich if I’m one myself?
And third, life isn’t equal. It never has been and it never will be. Some people are born with more athletic ability than most. Some are born with better looks than most. Some are born smarter than most. Some are born with more money than most. And some are born with all of them. You can’t manufacture “fair” and you only create more types of unfairness (and in this case, injustice) by attempting to use government to enforce it. Furthermore, everytime government-enforced equality has been tried, it has failed miserably. It simply doesn’t work. People have to accept things in life. The have to accept that they will never get the hot cheerleader or actress because they just don’t have what it takes. They have to accept that they will never play professional sports because they simply lack the abilty. At least with wealth they have a shot at it. There are people today who don’t have a dime who will be multi-millionaires ten years from now. But if people choose to take a 9-to-5 job rather than study and work and apply themselves and take risks to try to get ahead financially, it isn’t incumbent upon those who have to make up the shortfall when they wind up with less than they need, or to ameliorate the envy they feel because they don’t have as much as the rich people do.
When someone makes a ploy for sympathy because their rent is high because they’re choosing to live in one of the two highest real estate markets in the country, I respond to that. I could care less what you’re earning, I do care when you whine about you life, and how it’s so hard.
There are plenty of major metropolitan areas with jobs on the 6 figure level, in a variety of industries, that don’t have the extreme real estate prices of the NYC metro and the San Francisco/Silicon Valley metro. Even working in NYC you have options beyond a $3k 1 bedroom in Manhattan. But if you make that choice, fine, but it’s your choice, so don’t whine about it, that’s all I ask.
You haven’t heard me whine about my life or how hard it is. And the only reason people who do do that is because people who think like you apparently do are constantly portraying them as “rich” (usually followed by “assholes”) and trying to redistribute their income to people who’ve chosen not to fight the battles necessary to make themselves affluent. In other words, if you and your ilk weren’t contantly acting they have it made and can afford to let you take their money, they wouldn’t be trying to explain that they don’t have as much as you like to think they do.
How many of you have an income of $250,000 or more per year?
Yes
How many people do you know who do?
My peers in the company and industry at large, my boss and his peers that I know.
ISTM that most of the people opposed to tax increases on the ‘rich’ are not in that bracket and are unlikely ever to
I’d say, for the people 250k and above that I know it is 40/60 mix on the “raise it damnit, shit needs to be paid for and the improved economic climate with a gov revenue increase will payout big time for options etc down the road” / “fuck that, its mine and the filthy communists are trying to take it away” ratio
My investment banker buddy kind of did in the beginning, when he was a newly minted investment banker and used to e-mail me from work at 2 a.m. He was half-jokingly lamenting that if you worked out his hourly rate, it wasn’t all that fabulous. But he knew that it would pay off later, and it certainly has for him.
I don’t, but next year on paper I might. I’m working in a foreign country with lots of stuff provided on a tax-equalized basis by my employer, and that has a way of inflating things (on paper) by a heck of a lot.
If two people are living in a crappy 1 bedroom in Manhattan and pulling in $300K, something is odd with this picture.
Either they are slumming and could afford better, but choose to live in a crappy apt (by crappy, I’m imagining cockroaches and rats, broken plumbing, plaster ceilings dropping chunks into your cereal in the morning, noisy neighbors, bullet shots through the windows, broken, urine-reeking elevators; and stairwells filled with drunken, semi-conscious schmoes. The kind of apartment I lived in northern NJ for $450/month).
Or they have a low bar for what constitutes “crappy” and need to get some damn perspective.
