Whatever happened to "the 99%"? That cuts off at 500K, no?

[jberryhill]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I get the cuttoff for 99% at $506,553

http://www.whatsmypercent.com/

$450,000 is a lot of money, absolutely.

But if you wanted to see legislation that works for "the 99%", then why are you upset that the threshold for the upper tax bracket was set at $450,000 - which, for couples on the same calculator - works out to the 96th percentile.

I don't remember anyone going on about "the 98%" or "the 96%".

This piece of legislation preserved reduced tax rates for "the 99%". It's as simple as that.

And as far as campaign promises go, Obama stated that his goal was not to raise income taxes on those making less than $250K. This does not raise income taxes on those making less than $250K.

So if you don't want legislation to work for "the 99%", but some other percentile, then pick a figure and stick with it, but drop "the 99%" slogan.

[limpyhobbler]

1. $400,000 for an individual puts you at 99.5%

[jberryhill]

2. Well I was going by "all filers"

[limpyhobbler]

31. oh. The cliff deal made the Bush tax cuts permanent for individual filers making $400K/yr.

Those seem to be in the top 1% for annual income.

Anyways the 1% / 99% is more of a convenient symbol and slogan to express the idea that there is a small elite that have disproportionate money and power.

I never understood it as a literal policy prescription.

[vi5]

3. $250K and up is 99%

http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2012/09/13/where-do-you-fall-in-the-american-economic-class-system.

And the 99% thing may be the Occupy slogan, but I didn't see a lot of people on here trumpeting it. All any of us were saying is that Obama said he wanted the tax cuts on incomes above $250K to expire.

[ProSense]

6. $250,000 is the top 98 percent. n/t

[vi5]

15. Type $250K into it...

It comes up with 99%.

[jberryhill]

7. "Obama said he wanted the tax cuts on incomes above $250K to expire"

No, he said he was not going to increase taxes on those making less than 250K.

[vi5]

13. Pick and choose your phrasing all you want...

Parse his quotes and squint and look at it through whatever lens you want. Something tells me you're going to cheerlead either way no matter what the outcome, so have at it and clap all you want.

[jberryhill]

23. What did you, personally, not get out of this deal?

[vi5]

25. Who said it was about me personally?

It's about what Obama campaigned on, what he promised, what he could have done (let all the cuts expire as they were scheduled to and then put through the "Obama Tax Cuts" for the $250K and below as he promised. It's about what is best for the country.

If the deficit is such a massive problem, and if he chose to buy into the manufactured narrative that this is the time to deal with the pressing problem of the deficit, then that should be the priority.

And the fact is by this deal letting the payroll tax expire, that taxes will go up on people making under $250K. And by some calculations in even higher percentages than the taxes going up on the wealthy since payroll taxes stop at $113K.

[jberryhill]

29. Well, since you decided to turn a discussion into personal characterizations above...

...then I thought we were discussing personalities.

[Puzzledtraveller]

4. I have been wondering about this too

We jumped unto 99%, so 1% being the richest of the rich, of who can be counted in a bag of M&M's. Then we began to see 98%, so we included an additional segment of income to the highest earners so that we now parrot the mantra 98% vs. 2% but where does that leave us? I don't feel like I am well represented in the 98%, not even close. How much of that 98% is upper-upper middle class,the newly created bunch between 250k and 450K? I would be ecstatic if I was earning 40k, I would call that middle class for me, so 250-450K, they can cough up more, infact 100K and up.

[TwilightGardener]

5. Anyone who wants to gripe about the cutoff being $450,000 is really

just looking for something, anything, to gripe about.

[Harmony Blue]

8. This +1

Imagine if the cutoff was for $1m.....how much the complaints would intensify...

[phleshdef]

27. Its definately a disingenious gripe.

[PowerToThePeople]

9. 193,307 by your supplied link is 99% cutoff for single filer

[jberryhill]

10. Okay, so the slogan was "the 99% of single people"

I missed the qualifier on that.

[PowerToThePeople]

14. don't be that way

You can only use one scale to measure. Single filer is the scale that can apply to everyone.

[stevenleser]

17. Except income was never the intended metric. Wealth was. See my below. nt

[PowerToThePeople]

19. I realize that

It was not my OP. I was just using the OPs supplied link to argue against the OPs stance that 450000 income puts one in the 99%.

[stevenleser]

20. Gotcha. Makes sense. nt

[unblock]

11. hey! why should the republicans be the only ones who have self-destructive internal civil wars?

[stevenleser]

12. 99% is about wealth not income, which actually strengthens your point. To be 1% is $8.4 million in

wealth.

If your income is $400,000/yr, and you save every single penny you make, you somehow dont pay anything in rent, utilities, etc for 20 years, you are right at being in the top 1% in wealth. Or at least, what 1% was 20 years ago.

The smartest thing occupy did was to focus attention on the top 1% in wealth because it is they who have unfairly made out like bandits at the expense of the rest of the 99%.

The worst thing you can do in terms of thwarting what occupy was trying to do is to sow divisions in the 99% and cause members of the lowest 99% in wealth to focus on each other rather than the 1%. That is exactly what these unthinking members of the progressive grassroots are doing by attacking the tax plan.

[vi5]

16. If you make $250K you are in the 1% of all incomes.

Period.

This moving the goal post thing is garbage, but sadly it was to be expected and was all too predictable.

[stevenleser]

18. Except the 99% - 1% thing in Occupy was never about income, it was about wealth. nt

[vi5]

24. BS

You can keep saying it and posting it, but that doesn't make it so.

[phleshdef]

28. You can keep saying and posting that it isn't, but that doesn't make it so.

Occupy was about wealth distribution, not about individual paychecks.

[pnwmom]

22. +1 n/t

[PowerToThePeople]

26. This assumes you are saving via "coffee-can" account.

Give me 400k salary for 5 years and I will never need to work again. Probably my children will never need to work a day either.

[stevenleser]

30. True, but it also assumes not needing to spend a penny ever, for 20 years. And its also about...

reaching the threshold of 1% in wealth.

[jberryhill]

32. "unthinking members of the progressive grassroots"

I don't think that's what they are. I think they are thinking, but not about progressives or grassroots.

[Cleita]

21. I could have been comfortable with twice that in income.

It would have made those huge salaries for CEOs stay lower than higher. Where we really need to go is to taxing assets. From what I understand even a tiny transaction tax on all trades on Wall Street would do wonders for keeping said street from keeping all the wealth of the world concentrated with the 1%.