2021 by the numbers
2022-Mar-03, Thursday 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtiggerIt's tax time again, so I'm updating my chart from previous years. This year, I paid $78 to a corporation for the privilege of submitting my taxes to the U.S. and Minnesota governments. It's quite the profitable corruption. At least somebody is trying to fix that obvious problem.
My employer gave everyone a 3% pay increase this year, which sounds great until you realize that inflation in the USA last year went up at twice that rate, higher than anyone's seen in 2 generations. Wealth inequality is still at terrible levels not seen since the Great Depression, with the bottom 50% skating along the bottom of all net wealth distribution, despite sacrificing as many hours of their life (or more) to the economy as everyone else. Hmmmm, I wonder where should wage raises go and who should get taxed more? One piece of good news so far is that evictions (already a problem locally before the pandemic) are still below pre-pandemic levels, but it's expected to turn bad.
The credit score is still a useless figure.
The pandemic lockdown reduced my already-low mileage to an even lower average monthly level. My "overall" monthly mileage is now down to 353 miles (568 kilometers) per month. That number, however, is calculated over the years since I bought this car, including trips driven to Duluth, Fargo, and elsewhere. Actual "annual" mileage is only 83 miles (134 km) per month for the last year. My numbers would be even lower, but I am an essential worker and still drive to the office at least one day each week.
I like this carbon calculator better than most I've seen. My carbon cost for electricity is zero, thanks to easily windsourcing my home power. My cost for gasoline is low, thanks to seldom driving anywhere. My biggest carbon expense is the 491 therms from natural gas for heating my house and water in 2021. Clearly, I need to switch to all electric. I estimated all of the secondary expenses.
The median US employee in 2021 earned about $52K/year. Assuming that everyone is still employed, which clearly isn't the case. Job hunting during the Great Resignation is supposed to be easier, but I'm not finding that to be true. Especially now that I'm insisting on 100% remote work without risk of coronavirus exposure. I may quit soon with no job lined up. Scary.
My employer gave everyone a 3% pay increase this year, which sounds great until you realize that inflation in the USA last year went up at twice that rate, higher than anyone's seen in 2 generations. Wealth inequality is still at terrible levels not seen since the Great Depression, with the bottom 50% skating along the bottom of all net wealth distribution, despite sacrificing as many hours of their life (or more) to the economy as everyone else. Hmmmm, I wonder where should wage raises go and who should get taxed more? One piece of good news so far is that evictions (already a problem locally before the pandemic) are still below pre-pandemic levels, but it's expected to turn bad.
| Year | IncomeUS$ | Change | FederalTaxUS$ | TaxChange | CreditScore | Mileage | MonthlyMileage | CO2MetricTons |
| 2016 | 30,500 | 2,384 | ||||||
| 2017 | 33,800 | +11% | 3,048 | +28% | 720 | |||
| 2018 | 36,600 | +8% | 3,938 | +29% | 723 | |||
| 2019 | 37,451 | +2% | 2,839 | -28% | 730 | 128.3Kmi | 428mi (overall) | |
| 2020 | 38,458 | +3% | 2,926 | +3% | 701 | 129.8Kmi | 125mi (annual) | |
| 2021 | 39,374 | +2% | 3,020 | +3% | 703 | 130.8Kmi | 83mi (annual) | 5.93 |
The credit score is still a useless figure.
The pandemic lockdown reduced my already-low mileage to an even lower average monthly level. My "overall" monthly mileage is now down to 353 miles (568 kilometers) per month. That number, however, is calculated over the years since I bought this car, including trips driven to Duluth, Fargo, and elsewhere. Actual "annual" mileage is only 83 miles (134 km) per month for the last year. My numbers would be even lower, but I am an essential worker and still drive to the office at least one day each week.
I like this carbon calculator better than most I've seen. My carbon cost for electricity is zero, thanks to easily windsourcing my home power. My cost for gasoline is low, thanks to seldom driving anywhere. My biggest carbon expense is the 491 therms from natural gas for heating my house and water in 2021. Clearly, I need to switch to all electric. I estimated all of the secondary expenses.The median US employee in 2021 earned about $52K/year. Assuming that everyone is still employed, which clearly isn't the case. Job hunting during the Great Resignation is supposed to be easier, but I'm not finding that to be true. Especially now that I'm insisting on 100% remote work without risk of coronavirus exposure. I may quit soon with no job lined up. Scary.