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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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What will it take to DISMANTLE THE 80%+, $3+ TRILLION UNCONSTITUTIONAL PORTION OF THE FEDERAL GOV'T which is poised to destroy America AND HER PEOPLE???
As for childcare, mom A might work 3 days one week and 4 days the following week, mom B might work 3 days one week and 3 days the following week.
The two moms would switch childminding.
If the moms work 10 hours a day, they’d average 35 hours a week.
I’d rather be milked.
What will it take?
It will take so-called "conservatives" understanding that Social Security and Medicare must end. The government must entirely end its business of providing old-age pensions, old-age medical insurance, and monetary support to the poor. It does all these things badly. It has no constitutional authority to do any of them.
And now supposed conservatives on a supposedly conservative wwweb forum will begin screeching at me.
The financial glass ceiling keeps getting thicker and thicker. Punish success and redistribute the wealth—Mandami and Bernie Sanders love it. Class envy and class warfare is alive and well.
True [partial] Wage Slavery.....
Utter, worse case scenario crap.
There is no allowance for employer health insurance. As you go up in income that chance increases substantially.
There is no allowance for family help in ASSUMED eternal childcare.
The entire premise is a welfare mom with 2+ kids and no family help.
It is OK with me.
Of course if Republicans run on that platform the victorious Democrats will be using all of us for slave labor by 2030—so it won’t matter anyway.
Lol.
Makers and Takers.
The Tax Law is [broadly] Two Tiered.
Net taken and net given.
don't get me started on property taxes.
I have said it also. After paying childcare, the lowest earner is typically making less than minimum wage and paying strangers to raise their kids.
They could work part time when the other parent was at home and have more money and more time with their kids.
I’m glad someone is counting the # of thresholds.
Does your accounting include the Medicare IRMAAs??
If they succeed in digital currency,there will be no way to earn extra money from side jobs or ev3n 0icking up aluminum cans...
Easy for you to say, I am 64 and paid into SS for my whole life. I need my money back when I retire next year.
Destroying the middle class PING
Socialism was created by the elites to keep people poor
That’s why the more you make, the disproportionate more you pay in taxes. They don’t want changes in social orders by industrious people.
My neighbors have a son.
He works for a fire department. His wife is a nurse. They work staggered days so they don’t have to pay for childcare.
Heck, half of us pay no federal income at all now, (not to mention those that get money from the government while paying nothing). Socialism Light keeps getting bigger and bigger. It’s a slow, but relentless process.
I literally get nothing from the government. It only inhales. If godzilla destroyed my home, I would be expected to fix it myself. The poor and the illegals get money and benefits thrown at them, and I don’t have vision and dental because it’s too expensive. I hope everything just keeps working!! (fingers crossed heart keeps beating so i can keep going to work to pay my taxes)
I’ve run into this problem twice. I can’t possibly pay enough to make up for the benefits they lose by accepting a job from me.
The way to increase employment is to stop paying people “benefits.” But I understand why those benefits are being paid. As a society, what do we want? Giving people some benefit, like discounted health insurance, or a subsidy, also makes them a slave to that benefit with zero possibility of ever growing. To accept the loss by taking a job, would be like swimming away from a raft the in ocean for the possible promise of eventually making landfall. Most people are not risk takers.
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