On Income And Taxes

I had one of my commenters complain yesterday that nearly half of all Americans households don't pay any income taxes. This is a rather common complaint these days from many right-wingers, and frankly, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. They have to know that these people are not intentionally trying to avoid paying income taxes -- they simply do not have enough income (even though they may be working full-time).

The actual figure is 46% of American households that don't pay income taxes. And I'll bet you that all of that 46% would love to make enough money to pay a substantial amount of income taxes. The reason that many of these people aren't paying taxes can be traced directly back to the policies of the same right-wingers who are complaining. Policies that have forced this nation into recession with millions of lost jobs, stagnant wages for those with jobs, and a  growing number of minimum wage jobs (with no benefits).

Add to this the rising prices of gas, food, energy, clothing, and housing, and what you get is a growing number of American families that have a lot of trouble just paying for necessities. Do we really want to add even a small tax bill on these families? Haven't they got enough problems just trying to provide a minimum level of food, clothing and housing for their families? Demanding that they pay income taxes, even a small amount, just sounds mean-spirited to me -- especially in light of the number of corporations and rich people who pay little or no income taxes themselves.

Of course there would be a simple solution if these complainers were really serious about wanting the working poor to pay income taxes -- pay them more. We could start by substantially raising the minimum wage (which would raise wages for everyone). Instead of a minimum wage, make it a livable wage. Of course the same people who want the working poor to pay taxes would be against raising the minimum wage. They would like to see the minimum wage lowered, or even abolished.

Here are a few income statistics that might interest you:

* Over 97% of all Americans make less than $200,000 a year.

* In 2009, over 235,000 Americans made at least $1 million (and at least 1,470 of them paid no income taxes).

* In 2009, about 8,274 Americans made more than $10 million.

* The median income of Americans fell about 6% in 2009 to $54,283 (a figure that is skewed upwards by those making multiple millions of dollars).

* About 11.3 million people collected unemployment benefits in 2009 (people who would love to have jobs that paid them enough to let them pay income taxes).