40-year-old homeowner says economy doesn’t add up: ‘I’m making the most money I’ve ever made, and I’m still living paycheck to paycheck’
fortune.com
“There's this wild disconnect between what people are experiencing and what economists are experiencing,” says Nikki Cimino, a recruiter in Denver.
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You're still off unfortunately.
Full time at $10/hr is $1600/month before income tax. For simplicity, we'll say federal+state tax is 15% so now we're at $1360. Social security is 6.2% so take away another $100.
Then, of course, this is the United States where most people have to rely on their employees for "affordable" health insurance - and often still have money taken out of their check for it.
So now we're at $1000-1260 monthly take home pay for a full time job at $10/hr
The standard deduction is $13850 so there's no way you're paying 15% tax on an income of $20,000
You're paying about a little over $600 federal plus whatever state tax and usually state tax is less than federal, but depends on the state. In some states you don't pay state income taxes.
So best case scenario you pay a little over 3% federal and no state.
At that salary you'd also get EIC and likely pay no taxes at all.
At that income, you would qualify for Medicaid.
Also I don’t think you pay income tax when your income is that low.