Via the Seattle Times:
For all Seattle’s newfound affluence, there are still a whole lot of folks living paycheck to paycheck. That’s no surprise, of course — but here’s some new data that bring this economic reality into sharp focus.
Of the roughly 419,000 tax returns filed in 2014 by city residents, 214,000 — 51 percent — showed an adjusted gross income of less than $50,000. And more than half of those folks are making less than $25,000.
The numbers come from a new analysis of IRS data by the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI), a liberal public-policy think tank based in Seattle. Researchers there used ZIP code-level tax-return data to create a breakdown of reported incomes for single and joint filers in Seattle, with some caveats.
Of those reporting income of less than $50,000, the overwhelmingly majority are single filers — a total of 187,000. Remarkably, that’s more than two-thirds of Seattle’s single population.
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