Does your paycheck come from the pocket of a rich person?

[arcane1]

Poll question: Does your paycheck come from the pocket of a rich person?

Or do you get paid via a company's payroll?

The punditz love to blur the distinction, calling the rich "job creators" when those jobs are not actually being funded by the rich. I mean, the CEO of my employer is surely a millionaire, but the company doesn't hire based on his personal income tax rate. So here's an unscientific poll to see how many of us work for companies vs individuals.

[sarge43]

1. No The 99%.

You know, the people who pay taxes and I thank them.

[Scuba]

21. Bingo.

[slackmaster]

2. Both are true. I work for a privately-owned holding company.

The money comes out of a payroll account, but that account and everything in it is owned by a family of very nice people who are far richer than I expect to ever be. I work in the IT department for their holding company, which fully owns several companies that were created by the family and employ about 150 people total. I work for rich people who have created many jobs. We are in a period of RAPID expansion, both growing the existing companies and venturing into new areas constantly.

:kick:

All "company payroll" accounts are in fact owned by someone - A sole proprietor, a family trust, a group of partners, or the shareholders of a corporation. Or in the case of about 8% of the workforce, a public entity such as the federal government, a state government, etc.

[greyl]

3. Too late to add "own and run my own business" as an option? nt

[slackmaster]

4. I think that automatically makes you one of the 1%

:spank:

[Fumesucker]

9. Oh don't I wish...

It's entirely possible, indeed usual, to own your own business and lose money rather than make it.

[kestrel91316]

24. Indeed. After 25 years of self-employment I am poorer than when I started,

as far as money in the bank. I DO now own my practice, but in THIS economy it's worth far less than I paid for it.

Life sucks, but I foolishly keep hanging in there......

[enough]

11. No it doesn't, not at all. My husband and I have run our own business all our

working life. NO WAY does that make us 1 percenters. Some years we have barely turned a profit. Other years we do okay, but never enough to get us anywhere near being rich by any definition.

[slackmaster]

12. I was being sarcastic.

I have many friends who have run their own businesses. Most have struggled with it.

[enough]

29. Oh, sorry. I misinterpreted the icon. Got my dander up. (nt)

[greyl]

18. Heheh, yeah, too those who don't pause to think for a second. :) nt

[redqueen]

19. oops... edit

Just now saw that you were being sarcastic.

:blush:

[jmowreader]

28. Many small business people are poor as church mice

If you have a good idea, the ability to sell it to other people and a good line of credit, you too can own a business.

And if you are able to sell enough of it to people to pay your bills and have enough left over to eat, you can stay in business.

[dipsydoodle]

10. ditto

so I went for other.

[Uben]

5. Other because.....

...I make my living leasing apartments. As far as I know, none of my tenants are what I would call rich, so I get my money from the middle-class mainly. The apts have been paid off for years, so no monies going to banks or big dogs.

Even before this, I have never worked for what I would call a wealthy person. Well off? Yeah. Rich? Not so much.

[uppityperson]

6. Other.

Insurance companies for health care, or private pay by individuals. 2nd job is paid for with our tax dollars, medicaid health care.

[Fumesucker]

7. What is this "paycheck" of which you speak?

:shrug:

[Blue_In_AK]

8. Social security

Mostly comes from the people in the middle.

[mucifer]

13. I'm lucky. I work for a small non profit hospice

[ceile]

14. Other.

My paycheck comes from those kind enough to donate to the non-profit I run.

[slackmaster]

15. Do you ever get donations from people you regard as wealthy?

:hi:

[ceile]

20. Well....

not so much donations, but sponsorships at conferences from vendors. Personal donations- no.

[yurbud]

16. public employee, so my employers are legion--whoever pays a tax of any kind in CA

[slackmaster]

17. I believe some taxes are earmarked in California

For example, the payroll tax for SUI/SDI premiums goes only for state disability and unemployment insurance.

[kestrel91316]

22. A. I don't get a "paycheck" per se. If there is money left after paying bills

I write myself a check.

B. I am not a "rich" person, lol, so....

C. My employees' paychecks don't come from a rich person either.

D. Few of my clients, from whence my money comes, are even remotely "rich". Mostly middle class in declining circumstances.

[hughee99]

23. The founder of my company

did not grow up wealthy, and with "rich investors" started the company a few decades ago. I get paid via company payroll, but without some rich person at the beginning, the fortune 500 company I work for wouldn't have a payroll.

[Cal Carpenter]

25. What a backwards question

I understand this isn't the point of your poll, but my answer is that the value of most people's labor is stolen from that worker and put in the pocket of a rich person. The workers barely make enough to get by, and in many cases they don't even get that.

Where do the super-rich get their money? Off the backs of the working class.

Again, I understand why your question is worded the way it is, but I think it would behoove us to frame questions like this from the other direction.

[jmowreader]

30. Be nice.

The point of his poll was to defuse the "job creator" meme. You know how it is: we're not allowed to tax rich people because The Rich are Job Creators, and if we tax them they won't create jobs.

The truth is, rich people do NOT create jobs. Corporations create jobs--and the bigger the corporation is, the more jobs it can create.

We can do one of three things in this country, when it comes to taxes and jobs.

We can leave taxes on the rich the way they are, and employment will remain where it is.

We can lower taxes on the rich, in hopes they create jobs with the savings. Rich people didn't GET rich by spending money they didn't have to; if no one buys more of the rich people's products, eats more meals in the rich people's restaurants or buys more things from the rich people's stores, the rich will not have to hire workers to meet the increased demand.

Or we can raise taxes on the rich and spend the money on public works projects. The reason government spending works when nothing else does, is the government spends a lot of money and they spend it in the private sector. They either hire companies to do things for We the People, or they buy materials for government employees to use when they do things for We the People. (If they hire companies to do the work, those companies have to buy materials, and usually from the place the government would have bought them from.) If this happens, everyone benefits: We the People get to use the thing the government bought, the company that sells the materials makes money, the contractor doing the work makes money, the employees of those two companies make money, the stores those employees spend their money in make money, and the rich people that own the companies make money.

Tell me something, lurking teabaggers: if the tax money the government takes in just evaporates, like y'all seem to think it does, why are there tens of thousands of companies in this great land of ours that were chartered specifically to do business exclusively with the government?

[Coyote_Bandit]

26. Paycheck?

What the fuck is a paycheck?

[WillyT]

27. State And Federal Taxes... So My Pay Comes From The 99%

:shrug:

:hi:

[JI7]

31. a wealthy person has never given me a job , i hire people sometimes and 'm poor

if i can get a good/ok job i could offer more regular hours and maybe more than 1 person. this is what i'm trying to work towards.

[saras]

32. They all come from productive labor, no matter who handles them in between

More of my pay has come from directly working for poor or middle-income people than working for the wealthy, by far. Between that, a self-sufficient nonprofit, and a few corporations and government entities. Only one rich guy involved (a remodel), and he was just consuming family money. For a while I did some construction work for some people who thought they were rich, but they were mostly wrong.

[TheKentuckian]

33. Payroll, the money to fund it comes from wealth, the poor, government, and any number of sources

Pretty much could be anybody.

[Nikia]

34. I work for a family owned company

I think that they came from a middle class family and that they were poor in the early years of the business. I am not sure how rich they are now. The founder and his wife live in a relatively small house although I hear it is nice on the inside. The wife complains about being poor, but I don't think that they are poor like their production workers are. They would be very wealthy if they sold the company but I don't think that will happen as long as the founder lives.