Posted on 12/04/2025 1:53:20 PM PST by grundle
Our entire safety net is designed to catch people at the very bottom, but it sets a trap for anyone trying to climb out. As income rises from $40,000 to $100,000, benefits disappear faster than wages increase.
I call this The Valley of Death.
Let’s look at the transition for a family in New Jersey:
1. The View from $35,000 (The “Official” Poor)
At this income, the family is struggling, but the state provides a floor. They qualify for Medicaid (free healthcare). They receive SNAP (food stamps). They receive heavy childcare subsidies. Their deficits are real, but capped.
Every dollar you earn climbing from $40,000 to $100,000 triggers benefit losses that exceed your income gains. You are literally poorer for working harder.
2. The Cliff at $45,000 (The Healthcare Trap)
The family earns a $10,000 raise. Good news? No. At this level, the parents lose Medicaid eligibility. Suddenly, they must pay premiums and deductibles.
Income Gain: +$10,000
Expense Increase: +$10,567
Net Result: They are poorer than before. The effective tax on this mobility is over 100%.
3. The Cliff at $65,000 (The Childcare Trap)
This is the breaker. The family works harder. They get promoted to $65,000. They are now solidly “Working Class.”
But at roughly this level, childcare subsidies vanish. They must now pay the full market rate for daycare.
Income Gain: +$20,000 (from $45k)
Expense Increase: +$28,000 (jumping from co-pays to full tuition)
Net Result: Total collapse.
When you run the net-income numbers, a family earning $100,000 is effectively in a worse monthly financial position than a family earning $40,000.
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We’re going from a $250 deductible (it’s been that way for a quarter of a century) to $6,800 next year. I bet we lose employees, and the problem is you can’t just plug a new person into a complicated manufacturing position because someone like a mold operator learns all the tricks over decades, not months.
James Madison realized what he promoted in the face of the the Articles of Confederation (Hated the Father of the Constitution moniker) and joined the Democrat-Republican/States’ Rights faction with Jefferson. Anti-Federalist were significantly correct/”prophetic”.
bump
Stop posting nonsense.
Remember Christie Todd Whitman? I know you do. Not our kind of Republican. Apart from family tradition, the only reason she was still a Republican was probably because the New Jersey Democrats were so mobbed up that a lot of honest Democrats — this was a long time ago, and there were still a few — became RINOs.
The way a lot of anti-communist liberals became neocons and joined the Reagan coalition, once they realized what the dems had become.
“I didn’t leave the party; the party left me.”
Anyhow, Gov. Whitman was in town speaking to a Republican “major donor” group. I was staffing the luncheon. This was a long time ago, and “major donor” began at $1,000. Let’s just say that, on a scale of 1-10, the room was about five clicks to the right of her. This was also before the Gingrich-Armey-Contract with America wave election, which produced the first Republican Congress in 40 years. Which gave us welfare reform, major pro-growth tax cuts, and a balanced budget before it ran out of gas.
Whitman was not a bomb thrower or ranter, but on this she was borderline. If it hadn’t been against country club etiquette, she might have been up for a Molotov cocktail or two. She reviewed the New Jersey numbers and, with regard to the democrats, her disgust was palpable. “People are on welfare for a reason. The reasons include obvious deficits like poor education, drug and alcohol problems, other psychiatric problems, criminal records, illegitimacy and the welfare mom with dependent kids thing. Yes, we want to be compassionate. But we also want to get people back on their feet, working, and turning their lives around. But we can’t do that if taking a job is a money losing, chumps’ game unless they can jump straight from zero work record, no skills and lifelong welfarism to middle management and a significantly above median income job.”
This is why there used to be, and still are, so many RINOs. Liberals who still live in the reality based community and don’t want to subsist on lies can no longer be democrats, unless they are terminally stupid or uninformed.
Which brings us to the AOC and Mamdani democrat party.
Christie might have taken a Molotov cocktail if we had been foresighted enough to have been passing them out at the door.
We enjoyed an historic success with the Contract with America wave. Welfare reform was a stunning success if the goal was to get people back on their feet. But the democrats set out immediately to dismantle it because THEIR goal is to increase dependency to build a client class electoral base. We have been backsliding ever since, with the Obama years being a complete repudiation of what works in favor of deliberate crippling of the permanent underclass. Note in the linked story that the welfare trap now runs up to $100,000. And the dems want to push it higher.
At one time I worked for the welfare department as an eligibility worker. Between the ages of 18 to 65 you were considered a Medically Indigent Adult and got no Medicaid unless you were long term or permanently disabled or had kids under 14. If you were on cash aid when the kid turned 14 they cut you off. Period. Food Stamps were based on income and it was a lot harder to qualify than now. We need to get back to making people work again.
You have no children? We thank the Lord.
Tariffs make up for lost FICA revenue from offshoring production.
Uh, they are funded by separate taxes. We pay in, we take out later.
If they quit spending the money and invested it in the S&P we’d have trillions to pay out.
For the last 30 years everything had been done to circumvent US workers. From high tech STEM workers to factory workers have been cut out or wages suppressed by off shoring and LEGAL immigration. Tech bros have trillions because of that. All of those trillions represents wages stolen from Americans.
I am amazed we are not fully commie now.
The real problem for me is keeping MAGI belie $134k.
1 more dollar income puts me into several hundred dollars more Medicare tax. In 2021 tax year I crossed that threshold and in 2023 my social security check was almost $500 less.
I can’t take much money out of my own IRA because of this.
Move to area populated predominantly by seniors. There are no schools there and therefore no school property tax.
Stop ALL immigration and wages will go up steadily and drastically. It the only way.
Easy to say. Can you back it up with thorough numbers?
And there’s the problem. Supposed ‘conservatives’ on a supposedly ‘conservative’ wwweb forum (and elsewhere) love them some socialism ...
I bet you actually believe that.
It's still wrong.
Solution: get rid of all these “benefits.” Then you can increase your income unfettered.
People at this level may qualify for those things - but they might not ever apply for/receive them.
I lived there my entire life until June of this year. I too, don’t want to go back.
That’s funny. I paid in and now I’m getting back monthly. Not the best return and I don’t like the 12.4% tax as it is now. Wasn’t always.
I can also work more on the side without losing anything. And a new big tax credit.
And it’s only my supplement income.
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