> I assure you there is. I know several dirt-poor people who live on that
> much, and pay that much in taxes.
I don't think these figures include EIC, a negative tax for the poor, ie an income redistribution plan.
The Bureau of Labor Stats says they do include EIC. The only thing left out, as I noted before, is hidden (unreported) income. This is usually a few thousand for people in the bottom 20%. That is a very large fraction of their income.
There is also a large but indeterminate amount of unreported income in the top 20%, such as the folks at Enron or the corporate CEO they nabbed yesterday for secretly transferring millions to his wife. Most of these people get away with it. Middle-class people have the fewest opportunities to hide significant amounts of income because most of their money comes from wages from legitimate corporations, which are duly reported. That seems a little unfair but on the other hand middle-class people also have the lowest tax rates; 16% versus 18% for poor people.
I
- Jed
