Chart of the Day: Taxing the Poor

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/6183942539/sizes/l/in/photostream/">Gage Skidmore</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


ABC News has crunched the numbers and reported what independent analysts had basically been saying for a while now: Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, despite his promises to the contrary, would almost double the amount middle-class Americans pay in taxes (low-income earners would see their tax burden increase nine-fold.)

There are a number of different components to this, but one of the most glaring elements of 9-9-9 is that it puts a 9 percent federal sales tax on food. That’s on top of whatever other sales tax exists (Alabama and Mississippi, for instance, already apply a full sales tax to groceries). Cain says that this is only fair, because everyone buys groceries. But that ignores the fact that taxing groceries is incredibly regressive. As you can see in this handy chart, poor people have to spend a much higher percentage of their income on food than rich people. Obviously, with more disposable income you can buy fancier varieties of food and do all your shopping at Whole Foods, but there’s a limit even then; it’s not as if Warren Buffett subsists entirely on $1,600 muffins:

Pretty self-explanatory: The less money you have, the more of it you have to spend on food.: Courtesy of the USDASelf-explanatory: The less money you have, the more of it you have to spend on food.: Courtesy of the USDAPoor Americans spend a lower percentage of their income on food than the rest of the world because poor Americans are pretty well-off, relative to the rest of the world, but the overall trend is pretty obvious. Cain has attempted to argue away the point that 9-9-9 is regressive by noting that under 9-9-9, there would be no tax on used goods. Food isn’t much good once it’s already been used once, though.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate