The “Texas Miracle” loses some of its magic as Oracle announces it’s moving its new HQ out of Austin and Tesla lays off nearly 2,700 workers.
The “Texas Miracle” loses some of its magic as Oracle announces it’s moving its new HQ out of Austin and Tesla lays off nearly 2,700 workers.
This isn’t comparing taxes. It’s comparing what section of the population shares more of the total burden.This isn’t saying the people in Texas pay more, just that the distribution is different across income groups. Which makes sense because there is no income tax. Overall, the vast majority (and all non-landowners) in Texas is paying less than they would in Cali.It’s a misleading graph, possibly on purpose to make people think what you did.Edit: brain fart. further discussion below.
It literally isn’t though, the graph is labeled and the article explains it in further detail, this is a graph of the percent of income each income group pays in taxes. You explination doesn’t even make sense, the numbers of all the groups don’t add up to 100%.
You realize that the percentage of your income that is taxed is a fixed number regardless of state, right? That 1% of 60k in California is the same as 1% of 60k in Texas?
It very directly shows that poorer people in Texas pay more than poorer people in California over the wide range of taxes in each state. They fully take into account land ownership or not, which you can confirm by reading the linked article in the comment:
Ugh I’m sorry. I started trying to make sense of it and then somehow confused myself into thinking it was a % share of total - as if each side added to 100%. Nevermind, I was wrong.
Anyhow, back to the chart - it simply makes no sense in that case. I would need to take a look at the underlying to tell me how the bottom 20% pay 13% of income to taxes in a state with 0% income and 6.25% sales tax. Only thing left is property tax (according to chart it’s those 3).
Yes I realize small local sales taxes may apply, but is a max of 2%.
How much property does this bottom 20% own?!
The bottom 20% of earners aren’t likely to make the same amount in CA vs TX.
California’s minimum wage is $16. Working 40 hours (hard on a minimum wage job for reasons) brings $640 a week. 10.5% of that is $67
Texas’s is $7.25. 40 hours of that job is $290. 13% of that is $38.
In this bad example, a minimum wage earner in California pays almost double the tax than a minimum wage worker in Texas. It’s a bad example for many reasons, including us not taking into account the extra spending power the California worker has after taxes.
Youre talking about the total dollar amount of taxes paid, which is irrelevant because of regional differences. What you can compare is percentage of income, which is a metric that works regardless of total dollar wages.
Someone paying $100 to the tax man when they only make $5000 is more of their money then someone paying $200 to the tax man when they make $15000. The first person is paying higher taxes. The total dollar amount is irrelevant compared to the percentage of income paid.
The data is very clear. Almost all Texans pay more of their income to state taxes than almost all Californians. The fact that California provides a more than doubled minimum wage than Texas while taxing people less is a feather directly in their cap.