Everyone's
getting their knickers in a twist about the 47 percent that Mitt Romney
figures are going to vote for Barack Obama, no matter what. But do you
know why they will vote for Barack?
Wyatt Emmerich did the math back in 2010 for The Clevelend Current in Mississippi. It's been written up at ZeroHedge and by Kathy Shaidle.
The message is simple. Earn $3,600 per year as head of a family of three, and your net earnings (after taxes and government benefits) will amount to $31,630. But if you earn $60,000 a year, your net earnings will be $34,366. In other words, if you work your tail off and increase your earnings by $56,400, you will be only $2,736 ahead in take-home pay. The reason is that your government benefits will be cranked down from $30,762 a year to zero, and your taxes (including child care) will crank up from $2,787 a year to $25,634. Talk about chump change.
But I am not interested in the raw numbers; I am interested in the science behind the numbers. It is true that I never read "Science Tuesday" in The New York Times or listen to "Science Friday" on NPR, but I am still interested in science. In this case, of course, the science in question is economic science. It is the branch of economic science called "marginal economics" that came in ten years after Karl Marx nailed his colors to the labor theory of value in Capital.
Wyatt Emmerich did the math back in 2010 for The Clevelend Current in Mississippi. It's been written up at ZeroHedge and by Kathy Shaidle.
The message is simple. Earn $3,600 per year as head of a family of three, and your net earnings (after taxes and government benefits) will amount to $31,630. But if you earn $60,000 a year, your net earnings will be $34,366. In other words, if you work your tail off and increase your earnings by $56,400, you will be only $2,736 ahead in take-home pay. The reason is that your government benefits will be cranked down from $30,762 a year to zero, and your taxes (including child care) will crank up from $2,787 a year to $25,634. Talk about chump change.
But I am not interested in the raw numbers; I am interested in the science behind the numbers. It is true that I never read "Science Tuesday" in The New York Times or listen to "Science Friday" on NPR, but I am still interested in science. In this case, of course, the science in question is economic science. It is the branch of economic science called "marginal economics" that came in ten years after Karl Marx nailed his colors to the labor theory of value in Capital.
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