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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (9054)	2/19/2003 2:30:07 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

The poor people here in the US have NO money after the tax If you make less then 15K you pay no income tax in this country unless you are a dependant of someone else. You do pay social security which is maybe what you are referring to. When social security first started I believe it was 2-3% now it is 15% when you count the employee side and employer side. Anyone who has spent a lifetime at the low end of the income scale will be paid more in social security benefits then they ever paid in. If they apply for Medicaid they will receive benefits far in excess of contributions. I've been in a full ER waiting room where the women taking my insurance information informed me that I was the only one who had insurance, that everyone else had Medicaid or no insurance (which means the hospital treats them for free). The poor people here in the US have NO money after the tax and basic cost of living for food and shelter. No disposable income, even if they have the desire of saving Do you consider cable TV to be a basic living expense? How about cigarettes and alcohol? A car? $100 sneakers? These things are pretty widespread in the poorer communities. I work with lots of poor and middle class people to help them figure out how to make ends meet. I've been doing it for years. I've had people who make $60/day who spend $20/day on the lottery and then try to borrow money when the rent comes due. Others who say they couldn't save for their kids to go to college, yet they have two cars in their garage that cost over 30k. Someone who told me they could only afford $250/month rent, but spent $100/week on cigarettes and beer and had a brand new truck. Another who makes twice as much as I do, lives in a rent controlled apartment who said she can't save yet she eats lunch in a restaurant every single day. I could go on and on about these bad examples, but I have some good ones as well. A guy who worked for me who only worked part time, made about 20k/year and used to save about 6k a year. Families who save 20% of their income, me who saved and invested 20% of my income for over 13 years after having a negative net worth for years and years. My husband who saved 25k in four years when he never made more then 30K in any of those years. How did he do it? We don't live a life completely devoid of luxury. We just don't do what most do on every income level, consume our income. I've found people at higher income levels sometimes save even less then poor people do. They are much more likely to have a negative net worth.