What is considered poverty level in this country?
I cannot speak for any other areas, but where I am the median income is 85K for a family of 4. Seems like a good amount of money, right? Well, let's remove 37% for income taxes, then we need to split how we figure it-if this family owns a house, let's assume a mortgage of 900.00 but we will bump it to 1000.00 to include property taxes insurance etc...if you heat with oil or gas you are paying easily 250.00-300.00, 110.00 for electricity, 75.00 cable and 125.00 for phone/cell/internet. Gasoline for the family vehicles being what it is, lets assume 75.00-80.00/ week for the family mini van and then an additional 40.00 for the second car...so we can say 500.00 for gasoline. Now, assuming our family enjoys eating, I think we can easily assume 250.00/week in groceries. That brings our household expenses to about 3310.00/month...now things being what they are, this family undoubtably has student loans/car loans/credit cards they are paying on, right?? Let's assume at least 1 car payment of 300.00 and credit card misc of 300.00. That leaves our family with a disposable income of....drum roll please...roughly 490.00 per month for all of the extras...medical, emergency, swimming lessons...lunch out at work or dinner, Christmas, gifts for birthdays....
85K= roughly 37.00/hour.