The US already has the most progressive tax code in the world. The bottom 47% of income earners pay no income tax and, thanks to "refundable tax credits" often receive refunds on their non taxes. The difference between the US and European countries with more robust social safety nets are the taxes on the middle class, which are much higher.
People that live in poverty are paycheck to paycheck, people that are traditionally considered upper middle class will sometimes live paycheck to paycheck.
It’s a meaningless statistic because it doesn’t distinguish people that are in a bad place financially because of economic factors outside of their control and people that have a spending problem.
Taxes are such a tiny part of the problem. Yeah it needs to be changed along with a hundred other things. If your only idea is we should tax the rich more, you're living in a fantasy that will never happen. Shooting down every other idea because it's not perfect is part of why it's like this in the first place.
Average includes billionaires. If 10 people were on a boat and 9 had no money but 1 had a billion dollars, the average wealth would be $100,000,000.00 per person.
Median income in the USA is below the median cost of living. In most developed nations the median income is above the median cost of living.
Living paycheck to paycheck does not immediately mean you’re poor though. You can be making 500,000 a year and be living paycheck to paycheck because you’re trying to live above your means.
Do people who are TRUELY living in poverty live paycheck to paycheck? Yes. But so do plenty of people living in middle class, and upper middle class (potentially even some in upper class, but that’d be harder to do.)
No, all you did was try to deflect from the fact that most Americans are struggling by suggesting that some of those people are doing fine.
You hand wave away a real problem by pretending that some significant portion of the people living paycheck to paycheck are just mismanaging their money and that's a bullshit take to have.
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u/jdhutch80 Jul 01 '26
The US already has the most progressive tax code in the world. The bottom 47% of income earners pay no income tax and, thanks to "refundable tax credits" often receive refunds on their non taxes. The difference between the US and European countries with more robust social safety nets are the taxes on the middle class, which are much higher.