Third, our owners stir up class warfare between the low end middle class and the high end middle class. The guy making $20/hour thinks the guy with $250K gross income is rich. This poor slob has no numerical conception of RICH!

Cramchakle I would like to see this concept turned into a simple online App where I can put in information about my own family, and it presents a curve customized to me. It might help me to better get mine back out of the system.

Education. But this is fundamentally impossible without a grievious reset of the economy. Thrift can only be learned by the masses through the loss of safety nets.

Also, we are a Republic, not a Democracy. Our leaders are supposed to protect the rights of all citizens, not have some benefit by taking property by force from others. Read John Locke to see the difference between a right and a privilege.

Even though implicit marginal rates may be very high. How likely is it that the working poor are aware of their incentives? I

glesias has a link to this instant article here but "would like to see it replicated by someone who’s from someplace more credible than the Mises Institute."

I recreated the chart in Georgia (as I live in Atlanta). I'm assuming it is similar rules. What's the interval used to calculate the marginal rates? The only thing I can figure is that it must be pretty high. Calculating changes at $1,000 intervals create marginal rates in excess of 900% at two different points. Maybe I am modeling this incorrectly. I have read the rules that Medicaid and PeachCare phase out at specific income amounts. In my model, you gain a $1,000 of benefits, you lose $9,000 and $12,000 of benefits at two points. For a single mother of two(the assumed household in the model), that is indeed a hell of marginal tax hike.

I think I'm going to take a stab at analyzing this for several State along with a friend of my. We'll publish to the web when we have something.