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

[hfojvt]

72. you defend a crap article and you think I should be embarrassed?

Obtuse and/or stubborn?

Is it really worth the effort to take you to school?

Your "hockey stick" is not about "numbers" the high end takes off because it is measuring "wealth" and not "the number of people with that wealth".

Would you like the stats on income?

For 2009 - 142 million filers of US federal income taxes
with less than zero agi - 2.5 million (presumably business people either creatively using depreciation expenses, or living off their wealth)
less than
$5,000 - 11.64 million
$10,000 - 12.14 million - most of these two groups are teenagers and college students living with other people.

Yet in the statistical combination they are added into the "bottom 50%"
$15,000 - 11.7 million
$20,000 - 11.1 million
$25,000 - 9.87 million
$30,000 - 8.74 million
that's 47.48% of all filers - pretty close to the bottom 50%. The average was $18,000, with about 24.2 million above that average and 43.48 million below it.

$40,000 - 14.55 million
$50,000 - 11.1 million
$75,000 - 19.2 million

That's about 78% of filers now. The "average" was $33,000 - a number that this article writer used to claim that this group was "near poor". Yet look at those last 30 million tax filers and add their IRS averages for their group all by itself.

$50,000 - 11.1 million - $44,817
$75,000 - 19.2 million - $61,470

A full 85% of that group of "near poor" who are making well over that supposed average.

Never mind too that millions of those teenagers that the IRS includes in the bottom 50% are actually adding to the income of families in this last, higher income, group.

Never mind either, that the IRS is measuring AGI, not actual income. I had some $1,300 or so not included even in my wage income because it was taken for my retirement plan, reducing my wage income of $32,800 down to an AGI of just $25,542 after my IRA deduction.

But by all means, let's use these statistics to over-state the problem of poverty in America, a country where apparently almost nobody is rich, and almost everybody is poor or near poor.

As I said, first, they are using the income of teenagers which a) overstates the number and b) understates the income of those at the bottom.

And secondly, they are ignoring that many people make quite a bit more than the "average" income.

A bell curve has nothing to do with that, and I think the details prove me right.