The lengths at which Wall Street and business news reporters will go to to make believe earning $400,000 a year is a pittance is remarkable.
Take Robert Frank of CNBC. He wrote an article designed to bash Pres. Biden's tax increase proposal that affects only the wealthy. "Here’s what that buys in a big city," he writes.
Yet while $400,000 may provide for a luxurious life in West Virginia or Alabama, it provides for a less lavish lifestyle in big U.S. cities, experts say. The soaring costs of housing, education and child care can quickly absorb the after-tax income on a $400,000-a-year family.
Sam Dogen, founder of the personal finance site Financial Samurai, calculated what $400,000 gets a family of four in a high-cost city like New York, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington or Honolulu.
He said a family of four living in a high-cost city with $400,000 a year in income could afford a $1.6 million mortgage on a $2 million home. He said they would be able to drive a mid-range vehicle — like a Toyota Highlander — and be more likely to shop for clothing at the Gap than Gucci. They would be able to take three vacations a year, but two would have to be staycations and the other would be a road trip.
Owning a two million dollar house is f**king rich. Most of the examples Frank uses are the big east and west coast cities that Republicans are supposed to hate, anyhow. And the increase on $400K is only 1%. I doubt that will affect these poor families making more than 98.2% of households in America from becoming destitute.
Frank does admit, "the bulk of the $4 trillion in added revenue from Biden’s plan would come from super-earners making more than $1 million, according to the Tax Policy Center."
This is an embarrassing article all around.
As Tommy Christopher tells us, CNBC is getting "brutally mocked for this article.
If $400k/year is such a struggle, @CNBC, it sounds like the minimum wage needs to be at least ~$200 per hour. https://t.co/jnpLvKsTjr
— Evan Wilhelms (@evanwilhelms) March 19, 2021
The fact that a CNBC writer can't distinguish between middle class and actual poverty is funny and sad.
But it's also worth noting that in terms of actual tax revenue, these 2-1%-ers are kinda meaningless. That's how bad income inequality has gotten in tbe US. https://t.co/9pZZetRPMJ— Student of the Classics (@KirinDave) March 20, 2021
The federal poverty rate for a family of four is 27k. Do you know how hard it is to raise a family on 20, 30, even 50k? Yet these entitled fools can bitch that 400k isn't enough? Eat my shorts, @CNBC. #TaxTheRich https://t.co/DbuGpDfZSQ
— Liam O'Mara for Congress (@LiamOMaraIV) March 20, 2021
Discussion
We are currently migrating to Disqus
On May 14, 2022, we started migrating our comments from Insticator back to Disqus. During this transition period, some posts will have Insticator and some Disqus. For more information on the transition, as well as information regarding old C&L accounts, please see this post.
We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.