NY, NJ, and CA are in the top five:
States with the highest and lowest taxes
yes this is getting old providing common info over and over and over
This is really getting to be like talking to a wall.
I agree, and I have been agreeing all along, that NJ taxes are high on those who earn a high (by any state's standards) income.
If you earn $200,000 a year in NJ you're going to pay a lot more tax on it than you would if you earned the same in TX.
But if you are making less than $60,000 a year - i.e. you are an "average" middle class American - you're not going to pay significantly higher taxes in NJ than you would pay almost anywhere else in America.
Now...
This discussion between us started when you claimed, wrongly, that the high cost of living in NJ is a result of high taxes.
I've proven that that is patently NOT the case, and I've shown you what does result in this state's high cost of living.
If an "average" middle class person pays no more tax in NJ, in fact pays less tax in NJ than he would in AL, or NC, or GA, then NJ's tax rates CAN'T be the cause of NJ's high cost of living.
Something else has to be driving that calculation.
What is driving that calculation is the fact that so many people in NJ DO earn more money than the average.
The average income in NJ is nearly 50% greater than the national median.
As a result businesses in NJ are able to charge higher prices for any and all manner of consumer goods and services.
A middle class family earning $60,000 in NJ pays roughly the same taxes as a middle class family earning $60,000 in AL but then pays a 25% to 50% premium on consumer goods and services because merchants and service providers in NJ can afford to charge inflated prices.
Put economically, the price elasticity of demand is more inelastic in NJ - in aggregate - because the purchase of one unit of a good or service requires a lesser proportion of the average consumer's income.
The same is true in NY and CA.
Taxes on middle and low income people are no greater than they are in most other places, but greater average income results in greater price inelasticity.