this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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One for people in the US:
You aren't taxed at the higher rate for all of your income when you get a raise that puts you in a higher tax bracket, only the part that is in the range of that bracket specifically. The rest of your income below the bracket is taxed the same as before.
I've seen a lot of people decline promotions and raises over this, and bosses are very happy to let you continue thinking that's how it works.
Not sure if that counts as not common knowledge, but a lot of people I know didn't know it before.
While that’s true for taxes alone, there are income gaps where a small increase of income can result in a loss of various benefits that were worth more than the increase. This can be things like food stamps, subsidized rent/childcare, etc.. People end up stuck because while they could potentially earn significant advancement and increased wages over a 4-7 year period, they’d have to weather a significant deficit through intervening years.
Ideally there should be no cliffs, and all these social programs should have a sliding scale of benefits so a person can always benefit from increased income. Part of the problem is they’re managed across multiple levels of government that don’t always play well together, and a sliding scale might mean more benefits paid out to people that don’t currently qualify. That’s probably actually a good thing, but gets spun politically as undesirable.