anarachochristian: jean-luc-gohard: Let me...

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jean-luc-gohard:
Let me elaborate on that last reblog, just to make it clear for people who haven’t worked at or near minimum wage.
My last retail job paid $10 an hour, one of the highest starting wages for a entry-level retail position in NYC at that time (and still higher than the current NYC minimum wage of $8.75). I had the occasional forty-hour week, but mostly, I worked thirty-two hours. If we assume that as the standard week, it’s $320 a week.
Between state, federal, and city taxes, at this level, you end up paying around 26% of your wages in taxes. If your paycheck for two weeks is $640, you actually take home $473.60. Your yearly pay after taxes is $12,313.60, or $1,026.13 a month.
You find an apartment to split with four roommates. Your individual rent is $700. That leaves you with $326.13 for the month. You collectively decide not to get cable and only get internet, so your bill is $75 split four ways–$18.75 for you. Your power bill is around $100 and your cooking gas bill is around $30–$32.50 between the two. That’s $51.25 for bills. That leaves $274.88. You get a cheapo phone plan and pay $50 a month. That leaves $224.88. You get an unlimited MetroCard because individual rides make no sense with you working nearly full time, especially if you go literally anywhere else in your week besides work and home. $116.50 per month. That leaves you $108.38 for the month.
You have $3.60 a day to feed yourself, clothe yourself, do anything for fun, deal with medical emergencies, and so on. And that’s at a full $1.25 above city minimum wage, or $2.75 above national minimum wage.
All I can say is….Thank God I dont live in New York. $700 for rent is fucking insane.
Also this seems like a pretty good argument for lowering or abolishing income taxes. As thats gives you the equivalent of an extra paycheck every month right there.

As I explain in another post, the additional rent costs and city taxes here pop up elsewhere in other cities–most notably transportation costs and additional utility bills. The difference between what we take home and what people in other areas take home is negligible once mandatory expenses are taken out.

And I can tell you for a fact that there’s a much greater peace of mind in living with a more-or-less reliable public transit system. Much as we complain about the MTA here, the cost of a monthly MetroCard is about a third of the cost of a month of driving (a quarter if you get it taken out of your check pre-tax through your job), and issues with it have never caused the same kind of trouble to my life that car problems have. My brake system failed and I had to come up with $450 to replace it in one day to be able to continue working. There’s never been a day when the trains have messed up and cost me $450.

Beyond that, the idea of lowering or abolishing the income tax is fucking stupid. If you’re using a product or service or piece of infrastructure, the funding comes from somewhere. You either pay for it in taxes or you pay for it afterward. You pay for roads with tax money or you have to pay a “road bill” each month to operate a motor vehicle to a private company who can charge whatever they want because there’s no competition in the area, plus you pay more on your products because no company is going to add a massive “road bill” expense and keep prices the same. Removal of taxes leads to lower funding for services which leads to privatization of services, which does not work for things that are not optional. And roughly half of your federal tax burden is Social Security and Medicare, which supports our senior citizens and is your dues to be likewise supported when you’re old.

(via robin-hood-for-freedom)