On 400,000 dollars a year.
Professor Todd Henderson makes 445,000 dollars a year. That kind of qualifies as pretty affluent by anyones standards. However in the kind of topsy turvy world we live in nowadays-the good Dr. Henderson seems to have trouble getting to end of each and every month.
Like most working Americans, insurance, doctors’ bills, utilities, two cars, daycare, groceries, gasoline, cell phones, and cable TV (no movie channels) round out our monthly expenses. We also have someone who cuts our grass, cleans our house, and watches our new baby…. [W]e have less than a few hundred dollars per month of discretionary income. We occasionally eat out but with a baby sitter, these nights take a toll on our budget. Life in America is wonderful, but expensive. If our taxes rise significantly… the (legal) immigrant from Mexico who owns the lawn service we employ will suffer, as will the (legal) immigrant from Poland who cleans our house a few times a month. We can cancel our cell phones and some cable channels, as well as take our daughter from her art class at the community art center…
I had to read that last bit twice. A few hundred dollars a month-when your take home pay is probably in the neighborhood of 30,000 dollars a month? I’d say you have some serious priority problems pal.
Consider this breakdown of expenses:
$455,000 a year of income, of which:
- $60,000 in student loan payments
- $40,000 is employer contributions to 401(k) and similar retirement savings vehicles
- $15,000 is employer contributions to health insurance
- $60,000 is untaxed employee contributions to tax-favored retirement savings vehicles
- $25,000 building equity in their house
- $80,000 in state and federal income taxes
- $15,000 in property taxes
- $10,000 for automobiles
- $55,000 in housing costs for a $1M house (three times the average price in the Hyde Park neighborhood
- $60,000 in private school costs for three children
- $35,000 in other living expenses
The median household income in the United States today is $50,000. Half of all households make more than this. Half of all households make less. The big expenses in the Henderson family budget–their $60,000 a year in contributions to tax-favored retirement savings vehicles, their $25,000 a year savings building home equity, their $55,000 for housing, their $60,000 in private school costs, even their $10,000 a year for new cars–are simply out of reach for the overwhelming majority of Americans. Half of all households make less than $50,000 a year–the Hendersons make nine times that.
And yet-he seems to have a cash flow problem.
The issue here is not that he does not have issues-it is that he tries to portray himself as put upon. And he is not the only one-there have been a rash of articles lately that can only be described as the rage of the rich.
These days, however, tax-cutters are hardly even trying to make the trickle-down case. Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.
You’ll forgive me if I don’t have any sympathy. If I were making that kind of money-I would be set for life.
I especially hate it when he brands his money put into a 401K as expenses-when in reality they are savings. $125,000 dollars a year to be exact. I save 15% of my salary every month and trust me-its going to take me more than a few years to see my savings grow by 125,000 dollars. This guy sees it in one year, every year.
Something is clearly out of whack when this kind of mismanagement can be defended.
