I was lurking on Reddit and I saw someone claiming that nowadays governments will do everything to make you out of poverty but moment you went above poverty line, taxes and all of that will make you way worse than what you were initially. I wonder if that is true.
lol, the more people that are poor the less resistance there is. You need power to resist.
As many others have said, I don’t see what it has to do with being part of the resistance, but…
It’s partially true. Once you make above a certain threshold, you lose benefits.
Last year I got a raise at work, which put my household above the income limit for health insurance, so even though I only make a few dollars more each check, I now have to pay two hundred a month for insurance that won’t pay for anything until I’ve covered the $3000 deductable.
basically it is correct in the U.S.
the line where they stop helping you is low and the line where you can actually make it on your own is above that. so they stop helping you but you have a very difficult time to get to the point where you can actually survive. so you wind up back on social welfare programs (or homeless). the system is broken in the aspect. has been for as long as i’ve been alive (born in the 70’s) .
they need to use a scale and use that scale to help you move out of the welfare programs. so the more you make the less you get, but it isn’t a hard cut off point. and the program needs to have incentives to help you get training to get a job so you don’t need the help.
not very many people want to live on social welfare, they want to fend for themselves but the system is broken in a way that traps people.
as for it being a form of resistance. that i’m not sure what you mean by that. do you mean a form of the people resisting against the government? then no it isn’t a form of resistance.
taxes and all of that
Tons of people still don’t understand taxes are graduated. So… yeah. You’re going to pay more if you have more to pay with. But it never makes your “poorer”. It’s only a higher fraction on each extra dollar, not the money you already paid taxes on at a lower bracket.
There are a few government sponsored benefits that have a cliff aka welfare trap. In those cases, yes you could be worse off if you step off whatever cliff the program has set. But that’s very different from taxes, it’s something to fix, and was generally something that was helpful which is antithetical to a thesis of government suppression.
Here’s a recent breakdown of which groups pay what in taxes and what they make roughly per year (Household USA 2023)
Bottom 20% about 1% or negative 30k-ish and below
20–40% about 6% 48k-ish
40–60% about 6% 70k-ish
60–80% about 16% 110k-ish
Top 20% about 70% 250k-ish top 1% being about 27% 580k-ish Top .1% 2M-ish
Being poor means you’re not paying as much or at all into the system. So I guess if your ultimate goal is to contribute as little as possible, sure being poor is a way to do that. But, being poor has plenty of pretty severe negative impacts on your life. Others here have described how taxes work as you make more so I won’t get into that. Long story short, if you’re being poor strictly as a way to “resist” you’re just choosing to have a worse life with less options. Especially in the USA. If you have the intellectual and/or physical ability to be employed, try to be at the highest level/pay as possible. Money doesn’t solve all your problems but it makes most solutions easier to obtain.
It just feels to me that more up you go into hierarchy, more you become responsible for the wrongs done. More you lose life when you become more up in hierarchy. I feel with poverty, you get genuine people who will not be around me for money. Food is already being given and like some sort of clothing can be achieved or like can be tried out. Internet and other sort of luxuries are just useless and more stripping away the natural human in us. Painful truth is that governments are trying to kill the poor but not the poverty. I heard that in many places in US, you cannot just sleep on bench and roads anymore and like more and more public spaces are getting poorly funded or entirely replaced by private alternatives. Entertainment has become what some AI bots have generated. I am 18 so I think that too that I am being emotional maybe and not thinking long term but given the wars and disillusionment I have seen and heard, I don’t even think that life itself is worthy, let alone living a poverty-full life.
Yeah, you have a lot of living to do. Spend less time on the internet, especially doomy places like Lemmy. The world by and large is a fantastic place where you can build a fulfilling and happy life.
Lemmy is less doomy than Reddit and I use Reddit although banned from there. And for happiness, I believe it is a mirage. Life is not meant to be anything other than life itself and world is just a random atomic mess.
Yeah, like I said, you have a lot of living to do. A period of misanthropic negativity is pretty normal. You’ll be okay and the world will feel brighter the more positive experiences/relationships you have. Less internet, more life.