My Life Is a Lie [“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.”]

There is no allowance for employer health insurance. As you go up in income that chance increases substantially.

Exactly. Roughly 90% of American workers work for wages. That means they generally have access to health insurance through their employer. While the quality of that insurance obviously varies, for the most part it's good enough.

I paid in and now I’m getting back monthly.

You paid in to somebody else's SS check, and now other people are paying in to make your SS check.

It's a ponzi scheme, or generational theft.

It's NOT an investment, so the term "return" has no real applicability to it. You get whatever Congress decides to give you.

And it’s only my supplement income.

So you're not stupid. That's good.

There is no allowance for family help in ASSUMED eternal childcare.

Not only that, but some of his numbers are suspect. The author gives a number of $32k/yr for two kids, or roughly $1333 per month per child. He gives no indication of how he arrived at that number.

A quick google search indicates that the average monthly daycare cost for an infant is $1282/mo, which is lower than his but still reasonably close. However, daycare for a toddler, typically defined as a 1-3 year old, drops to $1200/month, and it drops down to $800/mo for a 4 year old.

A reasonable 2 year separation between children would mean the costs would be about $29,784 the first year, assuming a newborn and a 2 year old. The 2nd year (1 year old and 3 year old) would be $28800 and the third year (2 and 4) would be $24000. By the fourth year, cost would drop dramatically as the older child is now in school and no longer needs all day daycare, and the youngest child would be 4 years old and costs would be about $9600/year. By the fifth year, child care costs would be negligible relatively speaking. All the while, the family income continues to increase.

The system is designed for dependency. It has nothing to do with a helping hand up. If it did benefits would phase out.

Just about everything the gooberment does has a clif of qualification. One penny above or below the limit and now you pay 100% of the incremental tax or penalty or lose 100% of the previous benefit.

Government sucks and is populated by idiots.

Not much of an incentive is it? I have been there and had to climb over that mountain to enter a different land so to speak. It was a bitter trip for me. It made me hate the government more than I ever did and still do. The only thing I hate more are the politicians and the voters that put a lot of them in office.

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.

Not only, but such can also qualify for many non-cash benefits that are not counted as income.

I asked https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-causes-and-what-can-resol-1xHgDwIiRwKT7pxSNWeOtA#5 to read the link, as well as Welfare and growing dependency upon government. What determines income in Federal Poverty Guidelines as to its veracity. It responded:

The piece is directionally right that the official poverty line is an old, very limited benchmark that understates current economic stress, but its claim that the “real” poverty line is about 140k for a family of four is more rhetorical and model‑driven than something standard data would support. Means‑tested benefits and under‑reported income (including cohabiting partners) do complicate the picture and can make some low‑reported‑income households better off than the official numbers suggest, but the scale of that effect is far smaller than what would be needed to overturn the broad story that many working‑ and middle‑income households face real financial squeeze.
What the article gets basically right
The poverty thresholds really do come from Mollie Orshansky’s 1960s “food‑times‑three” method, and they have long been criticized as a measure of minimum subsistence rather than of full participation in modern life.
Housing, childcare, and healthcare costs have risen much faster than general inflation and much faster than wages in many metro areas, so a family at or even above the median income can feel financially fragile, especially with children.
Benefit “cliffs” are real in many programs: as earnings rise, Medicaid, childcare assistance, SNAP, and housing subsidies can drop sharply, so marginal effective tax rates can be very high for some low‑ to moderate‑income families.
Where the 140k “poverty line” is more debatable
The author takes current food‑budget shares (around 5–7% for many households) and mechanically inverts Orshansky’s rule to get a multiplier of about 16 instead of 3, then applies that to argue a “crisis” line around 130–150k; that is an internally consistent thought experiment, but it is not a standard or widely accepted measure of poverty or basic needs.
National data show that the median income for a family of four is well below 140k, yet a large subset of those families are not in persistent arrears, eviction, or bankruptcy; that does not mean they are comfortable, but it suggests 140k as a universal “below this you’re in crisis” line is too high for many regions, especially outside high‑cost metros.
How non‑cash and under‑reported resources affect the picture
Official poverty measures historically ignored most in‑kind aid (SNAP, housing vouchers, Medicaid), though “supplemental” measures now try to include at least some of those benefits; this means the traditional poverty rate overstates hardship relative to what people actually consume, while the author’s critique focuses on the opposite problem—how much it costs to reach a more comfortable standard.
Non‑cash benefits can be very large for some low‑income families—free or nearly‑free health coverage, substantial food aid, housing assistance, and childcare subsidies—so households with very low reported earnings can have materially higher real living standards than their cash income alone would suggest.
Fraud, cohabitation, and “hidden” income
Program rules typically require counting the income of a cohabiting spouse, and in some cases a cohabiting partner, but enforcement depends on self‑report plus periodic checks, so there is room for misreporting (for example, claiming to be a single‑parent, single‑income household while receiving support from an unreported partner).
Studies and audits tend to find some level of misreporting and fraud in means‑tested programs, but the best evidence suggests it is a minority share of total benefits, not the dominant pattern; most recipients appear to be eligible under program rules, even if the rules themselves can be debated.
Pulling it together
The essay is strongest when it highlights: the archaic design of the official poverty line; the way housing/healthcare/childcare outpace wages; and the reality of benefit cliffs that punish incremental earnings.
It is weaker when it treats a single “participation” budget (with specific housing and childcare assumptions) as if it defined a hard national poverty line at ~140k, and when it underplays that many low‑reported‑income households receive substantial in‑kind support and sometimes additional unreported help (relatives, partners, informal work) that lift them above bare starvation.
If you like, a next step would be to build a simple spreadsheet for one or two specific regions, using local rent/childcare/insurance numbers, and compare: official poverty line, your own “basic needs” budget, and what various benefit packages would actually cover for a single‑parent vs. cohabiting‑couple scenario.