If you think you are moving ahead the liberal cause by lying about these things, i think you're wrong, and you hurt the cause you purportedly support.
I guess trying to stay polite, can you document anything, rather than saying what your wide world and American experience seem to tell you.
It's a big country and experiences are vastly different from region to region, so we could all be speaking truth here. Mimi claimed about a $300 dollar a month tax burden and I don't think that's out of line in some areas. We've established that the federal tax alone is just under $120/month, so depending on the state it's entirely possible. You first asserted the federal income tax was zero, so we all sometimes make mistaken assertions.
And she didn't say people had to have cars on campus, just in general in the US. I've found this to be true in many areas in the US, especially rural areas and in parts of Los Angeles. Seattle and San Francisco are exceptions in my experience.
As to your comment below about tuitions, that also varies widely. California used to have the lowest tuitions and one of the best university systems in the country. Many people moved there from out of state just for that reason. In general, I think the west is still cheaper than back east. Here at the UW, resident undergraduate tuition for the school year is $5,610 and for non-residents it's $19,908. We have pretty strict resident requirements. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
And I appreciate our dialogue regarding understanding this tax issue that Mimi laid out. However, just to be factual :), I did start at 0% tax, but thought about it after I wrote it and came back and corrected my own post. Then you argued a point that I was able to persuade you was not accurate, and then you corrected me on a point where my understanding was wrong. But from my perspective, (not suggesting it is yours) this was a excellent example of the two of us being open about what we thought, accepting when we saw we were wrong, and building to a common understanding. Including good natured humour on the way. but I think you give Mimi too much of room on your comment on taxes--she implicitly suggested 28% tax, and you and I worked to a point where we agreed it was 14.something (afraid to go back and check my notes, as I lose the post sometimes). But I'm in a very high tax state--California, or should I say Kalifornie, and the rate here is 9.5% at the highest income level--much, much less at the $20k level.
but Mimi went on to say the cheapest state universities are $2000 a month, $18,000 a year?! While as I posted, I checked the California state universities (yo, not the cheapest), and they are $2000 per year. And izzie, note you quote instate tuition at UW of $5610 vs Mimi's $18000 for her cheapest University rates). So UW is 1/3 of the cheapest public university rates--give me a break!! UW is a fantastic education.
But let me not repeat the whole argument. Your caution is a good one, and I note that Manfrommiddletown "2"rated me, and he seems from his posts to be a very reasonable guy.
I am new to the site, and was extremely excited about bob's posts and TG's and others about developing a new left economic manifesto. and then further turned on by the data bases that TG brought forward that might provide commonality, and good discussion. As you can see from what I said previously, this really caught my interest. i have also been really keen about the more global view of this site, and what I perceive as a higher level of intellectual dialogue than other site I've been on.
so it's probably a good time to take a few days off from the site and reflect, and I'll be tied up anyway on some other issues.
but thank you for your gentle, and kind post, that i might be off base.
And I do think one of the big problems with discussing poverty issues in the US is that we don't have the facts. We in fact have a lot of propaganda about how great things are here. For instance the problem in the thread is unemployment statistics -- in my experience, these figures seem completely off.
Also in my experience, many people are simply ignored by our system, so I can't see how they'd be included in the statistics. But I wouldn't begin to be able to prove any of this -- I have no facts about unemployment. All I can do is tell more educated folks what it looks like from where I stand and hope they'll listen enough so we can figure it out.
Beverly Hills and Watts are not very far apart. If you were to ask a resident of each place what the US or Los Angeles was like, any sane person would have to suspect one of those residents was a liar. It's only logical. That seems to me to be the heart of the problem -- things are insane here and there's no consensus about the truth. Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes
There are data on state college tuition and other charges here from AASCU.
Hat-tip to Bonddad and his diary on Booman Tribune, which also includes a discussion of unemployment numbers and the job market.
BTW, when I said $ 2000.00 per month tuition, I was calculating in my mind about two semester per year of 3 to 3.5 months each. So, I was thinking about $12,000.00 per year for tuition for non-resident students at public universities (I was thinking about foreign students on a student visa who do have to pay out of state tuition). Almost all public universities around my area do cost $ 12,000.00 full-time for non-resident students. Here and and here see bottom table for some examples.
I am also not counting as living expenses data for students who live on campus. Most don't live more than one to max two years on campus (as far as I know) and then have to find housing off-campus.
I am not quite sure why we discuss this here, actually. It's off-topic. It's pretty clear that the financial burden of getting a university level education is much higher in the US than in Europe. I don't remember why I even felt compelled to make such a general comment, as the original topic of this article was to compare unemployment statistics. Sorry that I drifted away from the topic and for just talking about personal experiences.
As for my tax comments, they were derived approximately from this real life example.
Project: xxxxxxxxx Washington - USA Year: 2004 RE: xxxxx Month: January Payroll: xxxxxxxxxx Exemptions: one Hours/Days:
Employee's Gross Pay: 2,092.00 ($ 25,104.00 per year) to deduct: Metrochecks Employee's Contr. 0.00
Gross Pay for Social Security(SS), Medicare Tax: 2,092.00 to deduct: 401K Employee's Contr. 0% 0.00
Gross Pay for Fed. Income Tax, State Tax: 2,092.00 to deduct: SS Employee's Contr. 6.2% 129.70 MED Employee's Contr. 1.45% 30.33 FIT Employee's Contr. 214.00 State Tax DC Employee's Contr. State Tax MD Employee's Contr. 130.08 State Tax VA Employee's Contr. Total FIT Tax Payments for Employee 534.06 Total State Tax Payments for Employee 130.08
Employee's Net Pay 1,587.89
This is a real-life example for an $ 25,000.00/year salary ending up netting $ 1,587.89. I actually made a good guess how much less it would be for a $ 20,000.00/year salary with the same exemptions and State Tax. The whole issue is IMHO irrelevant, because your net is dependent on so many variables, which can be different from person to person and state to state.
I don't have a liberal agenda, am still a very foreign person to the US, so these labels don't mean much for me.
I have no "official statistics". Sorry, I am just giving you what I experienced. If that is but a small and unrepresentative sample of Germans, who come to work in the US, I apologize.
For the other items you accuse me about lying, I just tell you what I experienced. I don't know of any student in my area, who is without a car. I don't know of any student in my area who finds rentals (sharing with others) below $ 500.00 and efficiencies under $ 800.00 Of course this the Metropolitan area of Washington D.C. I also know that the average hourly rate in typical jobs students take at the side is aroun $9.00 to $ 10.00. As for my tax tables, of course they are different dependent on what you file, where you live and where you work. Let me tell this, I simply tried to say that working full-time and studying full-time is hard and not necessary in that form in European countries, where you don't have to pay tuition.
I am a bit confused about your accusations. May be because I am not the "professional researcher" who comes with "links" to "statistics" that tell the "truth", my comments are not valid. May be you are right. If this site is too professional for me to comment on, I will gladly keep myself out of here. Sorry for having you upset.
