From the article:
“Using conservative, national-average data:
Childcare: $32,773
Housing: $23,267
Food: $14,717
Transportation: $14,828
Healthcare: $10,567
Other essentials: $21,857
Required net income: $118,009
Add federal, state, and FICA taxes of roughly $18,500, and you arrive at a required gross income of $136,500.
This is Orshansky’s “too little” threshold, updated honestly. This is the floor.
The single largest line item isn’t housing. It’s childcare: $32,773.
This is the trap. To reach the median household income of $80,000, most families require two earners. But the moment you add the second earner to chase that income, you trigger the childcare expense.
If one parent stays home, the income drops to $40,000 or $50,000—well below what’s needed to survive. If both parents work to hit $100,000, they hand over $32,000 to a daycare center.”
The bigger picture point he’s making is that through this lie of the “poverty line” we’ve created a disincentive to work for anything less than ~$100k. Life actually gets worse from ~$40k to ~$100k. Sure people won’t starve but this system is fist-fucking our society regardless of what political POV you come from.
