If you Make $35,000 per Year, You are in the top Half of Taxpayers

Someone sent me the link to this article and I think they did because they found the information as enlightening and stunning as I did. I've included a link to the article which appears on Yahoo finance, but here is a synopsis of the major points that struck me:

1. In 2008, fifty million individuals in what is arguably the richest country on earth (and it may continue to get more "arguable" over time as economic winds shift and the wealth decks get reshuffled)...struggled to get enough to eat.

2. Forty million Americans, at the end of 2009, were living in poverty. How is poverty defined? If you are single and make less than a thousand dollars a month, you're there (in the Raleigh NC area, just try to get an apt of any kind for under $700).

Now, here's the big one:

3. Those with an income of just slightly under thirty-three thousand dollars a dollar are in the top half of income-earners. That's very sobering.

Statistics like this make me wonder just how unrealistic the media portrayal of American life really is. I mean, think about it. You walk into Best Buy and the only televisions are LCDs, Plasmas, and LEDs, all costing a hefty premium. You watch networks like HGTV and see people routinely throwing gobs of money into ridiculous home makeovers (some may disagree, but redoing 1200 square foot at a cost of a couple hundred thousand would strike most as completely insane). And, then, there's cars. The cost for many mid-range vehicles these days (Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, Chevy Malibu) is not too far off from what a mortgage on a small brick ranch home cost in the early 70's.

Of course, it's natural to want a nice car, a nice tv, a nice house. That's normal and ordinary. But when half the country makes less than 33 thousand a year, you have to wonder how any of us can afford to have anything, considering what things cost today. You also have to wonder how healthy, or unhealthy it is, for us to be continually bombarded with messages that tell us that we constantly...have to have.

Link to the article: How Your Income Stacks Up

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