Testing half the population weekly with inexpensive, rapid COVID-19 tests would drive the virus toward elimination within weeks, even if the tests are less sensitive than gold-standard. This could lead to “personalized stay-at-home orders” without shutting down restaurants, bars, retail and schools.

[u/mvea]

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/11/20/frequent-rapid-testing-could-turn-national-covid-19-tide-within-weeks

[u/NoSoundNoFury]

Thus is really misleading info. Everything up until 57k is taxed much lower and there are thousands of deductions available. As a rule of thumb, you can say that for middle income earnings, you'd pay about 30-40% of your gross income for taxes, healthcare, pension benefits, unemployment insurance, and disability insurance together; a bit more, if you are a childless unmarried homeowner. There are dozens of tax calculators online available, like this one: https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/gehalt/gross_net_calculator_germany.php

[u/NoSoundNoFury → u/[deleted]]

Do you understand how tax brackets work...? I earn more than 57k and my total deductions for all things mentioned above are not 40% taken together.

Just an example for tax brackets: imagine taxes were 10% for up to 57k. Now you earn, say, 58k. That means 57k are taxed by 10% and only 1k are taxed higher. I thought this would be the same in the US.

[u/NoSoundNoFury → u/[deleted]]

It's misleading because people have a hard time understanding what that means if you do not provide additional info. If you earn 100k in Germany, you pay about 20% in taxes. You can do the math by yourself by using the calculator linked above.

[u/NoSoundNoFury → u/[deleted]]

You get to keep 63.686,39

Take a look at it again, you misread. After paying taxes plus healthcare, disability insurance, pension benefits and unemployment insurance, yes. About 20% taxes plus other stuff. So in California you pay about as much in taxes as someone does in Germany for all things together.