Portugal $81,199 eur you pay $29,940 in tax. That makes $52,059 take home pay or $4,338 a month average cost of monthly expenses(not including rent)is $ 2572 leaving $1765 leftover over a month. 3br apartment in city is $1,666. Seems doable without even having a second worker in the house. Especially on the higher end of the tax bracket https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Portugal#:~:text=A family of four estimated,lower than in United States.
I am more concerned with Portugal average salary of $33k eur and median being $31k that just isn’t doable
All the progressive tax systems are fine it sounds like your wages/cost of living sucks. That is the true problem.
Your numbers about median income are correct, however the ones about the housing market aren’t.
Almost nobody makes 81k/year in Portugal, if so must be working for some company abroad or in some scheme. Anyways, a 3 bedroom apartment in a major city in Portugal doesn’t cost 1,6k/month, not even close, those are prices from a decade ago or so. Right now 1.6k/month will get you an 1 bedroom apartment or a very small and old 2 bedroom one.
In order to get to those 33k/year incomes you’ll be forced into living in a city and at that point you’re already taxed to death and you’ll be living paycheck to paycheck, can’t save any money etc. Consider this example: after taxes (lets say 25%) if you spend 1.2k/month in your 1 bedroom flat you’ve 860€/month left for food, health, car, other taxes, expenses etc. you may not be (very) hungry but you won’t be saving any money either.
To make things considerably worse it’s not a good ideia to rent / buy in any place over 50KM from major cities because 1) you don’t have decent public transportation, 2) getting a car on that wage is hard, 3) gas prices and parking fees are crazy right now.
I’m assuming you’re American so driving 100KM/day to get to and back from work may look reasonable, but in Portugal that’s 100KM on broken roads / expensive tolls, expensive gas and about 2h-3h of your day depending on traffic and parking.
Median mean 50% of the country make more or less. So 31k is still rough.
You said the richer people in the tax bracket was struggling because taxes(at least how I took or understood what you said)
I can’t argue your lived experience but this is also how it is in America. Everyone who wants a decent job has to be close to a major city or be related to the rich people in the small towns and things are expensive. I commuted 150 miles a day (241 km) just so I could afford rent with 4 other people in my house. I spent 4 hours on commuting so my days were 12 hours it was exhausting.
Either way it isn’t taxes it is businesses paying poorly, bad production or manufacturing for cost of living necessities, and ownership class being ridiculous. Not sure what your politics are but taxes help the poor with health care, roads, and infrastructure. Also keeps the rich from controlling more.
If we look at recent data here it’s actually worse than what we were discussing. According to official statistics average wage is 1,463€/month in 2023… so that makes up to about 20k/year.
Also, looking at the actual numbers, in Portugal you hit the 37% tax bracket at just €27,000 and 45% at around €50,000. These salaries definitely do not make you rich, but they make you owe a ton of taxes.
Additionally, as stated on the article, the rich already pay an extra:
In 2024, an additional solidarity rate, which varies between 2.5% and 5%, applies to taxpayers with a taxable income exceeding EUR 80,000 and EUR 250,000, respectively.
…
You said the richer people in the tax bracket was struggling because taxes
What I’m actually saying is that there are a lot of middle class people here that get fucked over every time the “tax the rich” dialog comes along because the govt considers people making 33k+/year to be rich.
Bottom line is: whenever the radical left here starts bitching and pushing for legal changes on taxes then the barely surviving 33k/year middle class gets squeezed again and nothing else changes.
This “taxing the rich” stuff is kind of a lie people like to throw around because if you’re making 300k/year you’ll always have ways around the income tax and you won’t be paying anyways.