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Comment by jrodthree24 | Hacker News Reader

Probably depends what you mean by high income. I think someone making 100k will not pay that much and that is considered high in a lot of places. But I am not sure that is considered high in NYC. High is probably more like 150k - 200k+ and that still wont be anywhere near 60%.

I do get to ~40% when you add up federal, state and city. I don't think anyone is really looking at an actual 60%. Maybe 50% if you're making like over a million.

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Median household income in NYC for 2020 was $67k [0]. $100k (especially for a single earner, as is often the case in tech) is considered quite high, but not outrageously so if that makes sense? That's "1BR apartment in a nice but not too trendy neighborhood outside of Manhattan" money, so well on the upper side of middle class. I think people tend to overestimate how much money those outside of the tech bubble actually make.

[0] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewy...

I’m in Quebec so I paid 29% on everything over 66k to federal and my provincial rates were 20% (over 50k), 26% (over 100k), and 29% (over 150k).

We also have a 15% sales tax. I paid more than a 50% effective rate last year. This is the cost of our social safety net. It feels like too much too me and I’ll be relocating next year.

Quebec has one of the higher tax rates in canada. You still get a similar safety net in the rest of canada for lower (albeit still high if you are a high earner) taxes.

yeah here in NZ we pay 39% marginal over $180k, 33% $70k-180k - no state tax - mostly free public health (5$/drug $100 max per year, $30 to visit GP, nothing for hospital/urgent care/everything else)

What we don't do is spen d all our money on a military industrial complex

> What we don't do is spen d all our money on a military industrial complex

I know it's a bit of a meme, but military spending is far from our only problem. We could cut military spending to $0 and not even make a dent in the defecit, let alone be able to cut taxes. Social security, Medicare, and medicaid together make up 42% of federal spending. (Not to mention food assistance, housing assistance, unemployment, or the dozens of other programs). The US spends a lot on social programs! We just don't get much of anything for it.

EDIT: for completeness - defense spending was 12% of the federal budget in 2021.

[1] https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown-3305...

last year we spent 25% on social welfare (everything from retirement pensions to the dole), 17% on healthcare for all, 13% on education (from preschool to tertiary) - military was ~3%

One big difference of course is that here in NZ the govt owns the hospitals and doesn't run them for profit, no one takes a cut providing insurance either. We bulk buy pharma for the entire country. We also have a no-fault accident insurance scheme that takes personal injury out of the courts (fewer courts, fewer lawyers, smaller law schools in universities)

Yes, for sure. I’m not sure what causes Quebec to be so much higher. Our health care system has struggled immensely with the pandemic even with so much funding.

We may have a stronger government programs than most (subsidized parental leave, subsided childcare, subsidized French language media, etc), but almost none of them give any benefit to me.

Part of the difficulty to me is our high rates seem to kick in very early. A lot of other regions also have very high top tax brackets, but very few places are starting their top tax brackets at 100k/y income.

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