<p>Engineer, not to discuss this particular family, but yes, I resent being forced to subsidize people who voluntarily stay low or middle low income</p>
<p>Qdogpa – I think that many households in NYC, especially Manhattan, are one person.</p>
<p>okay- so in NJ $200,000 is barely middle class but two married teachers making $120,000 is excessive,</p>
<p>Tom, I dont know where you live, but where I live, even when the economy was great, our local school district received many many applications for every job. That to me is an indication of how salaries are vis a vis the martet.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with teachers being middle class. </p>
<p>Don’t teachers also get great pensions. Most people in the private sector don’t</p>
<p>Do teachers with top level of experience in your district earn 60K? Mine is over 100, with benefits, with pension.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>That’s a cool arrangement.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Do you know what she does with her time?</p>
<p>They avoid Federal Income Taxes and other taxes too. Does that annoy you?</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>We’re all on government programs unless you’re in your 20s.</p>
<p>Standard deduction? Mortgage interest deduction? Exemptions? Energy tax credits? Bush tax cuts? College tuition tax credits?</p>
<p>I am a single income household also…</p>
<p>I don’t see how anyone can answer OP’s question without breaking it down. What is the family-in-question’s net income? What is the average price for a 2-bedroom apartment where they live?</p>
<p>Seems to be a question of fairness by the OP.</p>
<p>The problem is that there really is no universally accepted definition of fairness when it comes to redistribution of resources.</p>
<p>If you chose not to have a dual income household and to live on 50k income and to apply for government aid would you qualify for it? If the answer is yes then there is no reason to complain. Do the same.</p>
<p>Yes, seeing fraud is irritating but you never know what is happening in cases like this.</p>
<p>We chose an inexpensive place to live and have low property taxes from of about $1,500 to $3,800 (range over 20 years). Cost of public schools ranged from $3,500 to $10,000 over those years. We homeschooled saving the district $240,000 in current dollars. You never know what the whole story is when looking in from the outside.</p>
<p>Could be they choose to be single income, because they would be worse off with two incomes, once child care was factored in… Also, the two incomes would make them ineligible for many programs/benefits discussed here…</p>
<p>The kid is in school, so a partime job during school hours would make the most sense, or an early morning job so one parent would get the kid ready for school and the other would pick the kid up. </p>
<p>It would make them less eligible than they are now, although I still don’t understand how $50k a year qualifies as poverty. That is the moral hazard created by socialistic government programs - if you remove the incentive to work, then people won’t work. if enough people don’t work, then there isn’t enough tax revenue to pay for those programs.</p>
<p>Somebody asked what does the non-working parent do during the day. From what I can observe, the non-working parent likes to eat at cafes and restaurants, so she spends her day finding new restaurants to eat at. They eat out probably 5 - 10 times per week.</p>
<p>There are expenses to working such as transportation, clothing and taxes of course. Then there’s also the issue of job skills and whether or not work is available. The U6 number is over 15% right now so there are a lot of people out there that want work or better work.</p>
<p>Do you spend as much time minding your own business as you do minding theirs?</p>
<p>Where’s the “like” button for Zoosermom?</p>
<p>And could your day-to-day life choices stand up to equal scrutiny? If you tell us what you do and spend all day every day, we would be happy to pass judgment on you, as well and come up with a determination of your worthiness, wouldn’t we forum mates?</p>
<p>Yep - double like on ZM :)</p>
<p>Triple that. ^^^ :)</p>
<p>Engineer, if you are that concerned about this, I would suggest you discuss it with the parent in question.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, no thank you.</p>
<p>Let me tell you, my house isn’t always perfect, I do NOT cook every night, sometimes I even let my kid have McDonald’s or even cake for breakfast. I am prone to spending way too much money on books, and I probably spoil my kids rotten. I can promise you that if someone were going over my life with a fine tooth comb, an entire thread could be fueled just picking apart my imperfections. I really hope nobody is watching me that closely.</p>