Follow the Money Trail

D Bozko, I'm married and she's the one earning the paycheck. She works from home and gets about 20 to 30 hours per week. We aren't suffering, but it's tight. We're both 37 and she has both a degree and gobs of experience, yet she's never made more than 12/hour. Working from home was what she wanted all along and apparently that's enough for her, which is great. I'm happy to see her being able to relax. We don't spend much at all. We know where to get overstock and distressed food. Since neither of us are driving around town all the time (vehicle's broken anyway) we aren't wasting money on fuel. Rent and utilities where we reside are decent. I'm sure there are cheaper places we could live, but there's an expense in moving to a cheaper place we cannot currently afford (we need the vehicle fixed first). All other expenses for us are little drops here and there. Nothing big at all. I'm just saying, on 15k a year we're doing fine... but 63k a year? Good god... I know from experience that isn't the average. Well, maybe if you chopped out the lower-class then maybe, but no way is that the average in the US.

Excellent point, Dean; and the biggest problem with
our new President is that he & his cronies think they know better than we do how to spend the money we all make.

@Johnny Cat: Why is that outrageous? The caption actually says "Insurance, Pensions", which includes Social Security tax payments, which at this point in the life of that program doesn't exactly guarantee an eventual payout upon retirement, so I'd first question why SS taxes are included in that figure. That 10.8 percent also includes retirement savings; most people are far behind where they ought to be for retirement in the first place, so that figure should be higher.

@Dean
Actually you are correct. Everyone who has a job does not pay attention to the taxes being automatically taken out. I have a couple times added up how much in taxes I pay each month any it is about $450. But still that does not equal my student loan payment each month which is over $300 more than that.

The "Coming Collapse of the Middle Class" talk from Elizabeth Warren (from the Harvard Law School) might give everyone a bit more information to chew on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

It's outrageous that we spend almost as much on insurance as we do food.