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I live in the southeast and I've noticed this conflict of emotions among many, many individuals in my area. The best I can describe it is they're post-complacency in their current situation - they're getting antsy - but at the same time they're afraid of the spotlight and afraid of change. It's almost painful introversion. I don't know if this is a product of growing up in rural isolation for so long and actually having to interact with and manage others or what.
This internal conflict, I believe, is what causes so many people to drift from one $10/hr job to another. Never moving up, never stepping up to responsibility, because they're legitimately afraid. Not necessarily lazy. It's scares me more to be an entry level employee for the rest of my life, so I did something about it.
I'm making a rash generalization, but it's as if all the friends they'll make are made in childhood, and if you didn't grow up with them you'll never be more than an acquaintance. Everything is centered around "family". When I turned 18, my dad said "well, you're a man now - we can't tell you what to do but we're here if you need anything". He saw I was motivated and more responsible than my peers. Many natives to my area could be 40 years old, married with three kids and still be somebody's "boy".
New Agey type people call this "poverty consciousness", for lack of a better term. It comes in different forms for different people. Unfortunately, poverty has been the norm throughout human history; so poverty programming/consciousness seems to be in our DNA and it takes effort to override that series of mental/emotional programs.
Bottom line, people are idiots when it comes to understanding tax brackets. I have had several people swear up and down that when they got a raise, "the taxes taken out meant I made substantially less money." I don't understand this type of mathematical illiteracy.
Yeah, especially when you can compare one paycheck to the next and see otherwise.
It makes me nuts how people go around saying they pay 35% or whatever in taxes. If you paid 35% in federal taxes, you would be making over a million $$. My husband's nephew, the leftwing liberal who things they should abolish ICE, thinks that to be a 1 percenter, you need to making like $30m a year.
And just for the record, to be a 1%er you need to make about 389K--and that's household income, not individual.
I'm afraid of risk to be honest... I've worked in Corporate finance for 15 years and have a bit of a nest egg. I have an entrepreneurial spirit at heart and several viable commercial ideas yet have the cohones to risk everything and go out on my own.
That's also a good point. Maybe some people feel more comfortable using "funny math" as the (fake) reason for turning down a promotion rather than admitting the simple truth that they just don't want the responsibilities that go with the new job? (Which is too bad, as there's nothing wrong with being satisfied with your current job. there's nothing wrong with not wanting to keep climbing the career ladder.)
Agreed society definitely needs to remove the stigma that it's not ok to remain stagnant. Some people are fine just right where they are.
The squeamishness over taxes is not entirely innumerate or irrational, in some cases - especially those of older, affluent people. Keep in mind that something like the first $40K of qualifying dividends have 0% federal income tax - IF one's earned income is zero. For a semi-retired professional now working as a private consultant, every dollar earned gets hit by marginal income tax, plus 15% self-employment tax, and pushes the aforementioned dividends up into the 15% bracket (or beyond). This is effectively a 45% tax, just at the federal level! Then there's the question of becoming "too affluent" for ACA subsidies. For people who are done saving for retirement and paying off their house, who just need a modest income to get by, there is a strong disincentive to keep earning.
On a separate note, echoing a sidebar earlier in this thread, for a single person with no dependents, it only takes a handful of millions of investible assets to theoretically be a 1%er... pretty shocking, isn't it?
The squeamishness over taxes is not entirely innumerate or irrational, in some cases - especially those of older, affluent people. Keep in mind that something like the first $40K of qualifying dividends have 0% federal income tax - IF one's earned income is zero. For a semi-retired professional now working as a private consultant, every dollar earned gets hit by marginal income tax, plus 15% self-employment tax, and pushes the aforementioned dividends up into the 15% bracket (or beyond). This is effectively a 45% tax, just at the federal level! Then there's the question of becoming "too affluent" for ACA subsidies. For people who are done saving for retirement and paying off their house, who just need a modest income to get by, there is a strong disincentive to keep earning.
On a separate note, echoing a sidebar earlier in this thread, for a single person with no dependents, it only takes a handful of millions of investible assets to theoretically be a 1%er... pretty shocking, isn't it?
That's why it's important to know which benefits and subsidies phase out at what income levels and how. Some use top-line gross, other use AGI. Also, with the following scenario you provided, it seems the tax code is written in a way that there is a strong disincentive to draw from retirement while working instead of there being any outright disincentive to working. Unless one is motivated to work past the point at which they'd begin receiving mandatory distributions, an individual could plausibly choose to either retire and collect OR continue earning without much hassle.
Define "success" better. Beyond a certain point I do not equate more money with more success. Unless you enjoy the game, playing harder and for longer hours steals your time on the planet and time to enjoy what you do enjoy.
Define "success" better. Beyond a certain point I do not equate more money with more success. Unless you enjoy the game, playing harder and for longer hours steals your time on the planet and time to enjoy what you do enjoy.
Yes, this is also a valid point.
But there really are people out there whose identity seems to be "minimum wage" worker who seem afraid of doing any better.
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