In 2010, does $250,000/year income make you "rich" or middle class?

if you own a small business, you run it as a sub chapter s. this means all revenue = income, not just your net profit.

the whole argument that other people need to pay more in order to cover their fair share of the tax burden depends on complete ignorance of who currently contributes the vast majority of tax revenues and the relationship of tax revenues to the targeting of the upper income brackets. if you are so stupid to think that you can aim the irs at the people in this country who currently pay all the bills, you deserve what happens to you when you try to screw them. in the end, you get LESS revenues from them, the economy and investment shrinks, and the peope who suffer the most are the infantile suckers who bought into your marxist promises. if we all went back to living in caves, equally dividing up the grasshoppers we were able to catch that day for subsistence, would we be better off because in your mind it is FAIR?!?! if there is an increasing income gap between successful industrious people and vagrants, is that a sign of injustice to you? if your economic policy is fueled by hated of success (marxism), where the size of the economy is believed to be static and need to be divided into equal slices in order to be "fair", then the economy you get will be identical to all the other 3rd world sh*tholes. look at the difference between the most vibrant economies and the economic failures and you will see this trend illustrated clearly by the contrasts.

Oh, yes, $250,000 puts you in the upper 2% of American earners. It makes you rich. This means that 98% of Americans earn less than $250,000 The median income (the income that more people make than any other) is just a little over $49,000. And do you know why land value has crept up and up? Because the people that are earning the big bucks are competing with each other to buy it up for investment while the majority of Americans can no longer afford to buy a home. Yes, prices going up while wages and earnings for the majority stagnate and their buying power plummets means our standard of living is falling. It also means less money is circulating in the American economy.

I don't know where you're getting your statistics but you can go to the US census and ferret out real numbers. In 1956, my dad was earning a couple hundred bucks a week driving a forklift and we were middle class. Anyone earning $31,700 in 1956 was called Mr. Big Bucks. That's twice as much money as most new 3 bedroom homes cost at the time (around $12,000). It wasn't middle class. For some strange reason the lower rungs of the wealthy class insist that they're middle class. Not so.

Hello, Well, I am not quite rich and not quite poor either. I am middle class before and after taxes. My family has four members and we are on one income. I am doing my best to start a job at home to bring in some extra money. I would be happy making six figures. To be a millionaire, which is no big deal these days, is not even in my sights. To not live paycheck to paycheck would be a dream. Can you help me with this dream? Thanks and Hope this helps you..............

People pay social security tax on the first $110000, of their earnings and for a married couple with two high income on the first $220,000 so they rounded the number off to $250,000 so the marginal tax rate is fairly smooth. It is hard to make an argument that people earning $200,000 and $500,000 should have the same marginal tax rate but people with an income or $400,000 should have one that is lower.

Obama doesn't want to raise taxes.

He wants to let the previously enacted tax cuts for those people earning over $250,000 per year to expire automatically, as Bush promised.

It's not NET WORTH as your post implies. It's ANNUAL INCOME. If you make more than $250,000 per year you are in the top few percent of earners in this country. That's miles above middle class.

An income of $31,700 in 1956 would make you a top earner. Typical income was about $3 to 5,000 per year.

er... you're wildly just jumping back and forth here... using very bad examples...

the real estate market was GREATLY overvalued, it's like using beanie babies as an example... it's simply not representative of the overall value of the dollar...

the simple fact is... the VAST MAJORITY of people still don't make ANYWHERE near 250k... and those who do are in about the upper 10 percent, at least... by most counts...

while, granted, it's not what it used to be, it's still a lot... and it would be like earning 75k back then.. which was rich back then...

only 3% ( about 10 million people ) make between $250,000 to $ 80 billion a year . so yes that makes you rich .

in 1956 the zionist invention of free trade agreements had not yet destroyed the working class economy . that didn't start till 1974 when nixon 'opened up ' china

Democrats would consider you rich. Republicans would consider you to be struggling, and that's why Bush43 cut their taxes dramatically...and the rest of us got a $500 cut.

But the first $250k are taxed just like everyone else. Only the money earned over 250 is taxed at a higher rate. How is that not fair?

In 98% of American housing markets, yes, $250k is rich.

Know what you wouldve paid in taxes for that income under Eisenhower? 91%!!

isnt it funny that that era is what hannity and beck wish we could go back to?