THE NEW HOLISTIC RETIREMENT • 79
The Middle What? If you took all the household incomes in America and divided the m into five equal parts, you would have five quintiles of income. The lowest income-earning Americans would be i n the lowest quintile, and the highest income-ea rning Americans would be in the highest quintile. The middle income levels, the ones I was referring to, would be in the middle quintile. The middle quintile represents what everyday Americans are likely to pay in taxes. Income earners in the botto m two quintil es pay very littl e of our nat ion’s tax revenue (around 3 percent ), so the middle quintile is where U.S. tax revenue truly begins. 32 And, it paints a very different picture fro m the to p tax r ate ana lysis abo ve. The most recent year for which we have readily available quintile information regarding American incomes is 2018. 33 In that year, the average middle quintile household reported $63,572 of income. That amount of income placed the middle quintile family in the 12 percent singl e fil ing tax br acke t. Now let’ s go back twent y yea rs. 32 Demian Brady. National Taxpaer Union Foundation. October 25, 2019. “Who Pays Income Taxes?” https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays- income-taxes 33 Tax Policy Center. March 24, 2020. “Household Incom e Quintiles.” https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles
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