The Real Numbers: Half of America in Poverty -- and It's Creeping toward 75%

[hfojvt]

33. it gets worse though

they use data from the Tax Foundation

the Tax Foundation is one of those Rightwing spin tanks.

Generally their data is good, but they are not very good at logic, since their main purpose is not "to find the truth" it is rather "to spin the numbers to make arguments for the rich".

They compare the number of households with the number of tax filers and figure by that, that there are 1.2 tax filers per household.

What they seem to forget is that - almost EVERY teenager and college student who files their own tax return - even if their parents are fairly well off, that kid is going to be included in IRS statistics for the bottom 50%. My nephew, assuming he even makes enough to file taxes, with his part time summer job, will be included in the bottom 50%. His meager income will be part of the average of the bottom 50%. Yet, because he lives with my brother, he, unlike myself, is NOT part of the bottom 50%.

So to get a clearer picture of reality, you really need to take the tax filers who make less than $10,000 and drop them from the statistics because most of them are teenagers and college students still being supported by their parents.

But actually, if you look at reality, my guess is that teenagers from higher income households are more likely to have jobs than teenagers from poorer households. So rather than being cut out of the statistics, much of that income should probably be added to the income of the top 50%.

Also, when they write that
1. the average income of the bottom 50% is $18,000
2. the average income of the bottom 75% is $31,000

Using algebra, I find that the average income of the 50-75% bracket is $57,000.

But yeah, sure, let's pretend like their income is $31,000 a year and that they are almost poor.