Marginal Tax Rates

You forget to take into account the tax bracket!

All the fuss over OMG HIGHER TAXES for people making over $250K/year neglects one important detail: these tax brackets are marginal tax rates, not absolute ones. Even if the rates for people making $250K and up had reverted to Clinton-era levels, someone making $251K of taxable income would be charged almost exactly the same absolute tax rate, all other factors being equal, as someone making $249K.(ETA: If you look at the table, the hypothetical family’s combined Federal

Don't forget about income taxes, that'll skew that more toward the 50% mark .

You should reexamine your payslip. The highest tax bracket may be roughly 50%, but none of your income is actually in that bracket. You probably get to keep about 65% of your income, which is still less than you would get to keep in California.

Almost but not quite - at high ends of salary the marginal tax rate is 38%, so $50k->$100k doesn't necessarily make you richer, it just makes Uncle Sam happier.

You don't seem to understand how the progressive taxation works. In U.S. you pay 0 tax on first ~20k income, 15% on the next 35k, 22% on next 40k and so on (random numbers). The 22% is what you pay on anything above 55k in this example. But for the first 55k you pay only 20k * 0% + 35k * 15%=5250, e.g. 9.5%

Taxes are calculated on the bracket though. So not the whole amount.

Could you source the average tax rate number? That’s only the base tax rate for all income above ~20k.

you 're probably applying the highest tax bracket to the whole amount, but that's not how it works

It's only 45% on money above 60k, it's not the entire paycheck.