I hear ya, it’s not pretty on paper.
NYC as the tax zone isn’t helping much either.
I however get over that issue by only counting “real” money. I never count on the listed hourly wage to do my calculations, because I know that’s not the money I’ll ever see.
“Net amount” is the only thing I go by and that’s where all the logic comes through.
For easy math, if you make 10$ an hour listed with no benefits, ~ $2.50 goes into taxes from the getgo. So you’re already left with $7.50. Minus your mandatory bills and monthly expenses which will add up to about another $1.00 (small figure, but thats generous estimate).
Whatever money you do manage to save up from what you’ve got left-over to spend on toys, expect it to be worth ~10% less due to tax you will pay on purchase of the item, so there goes another $.75 at least (doing the tax on the net, not gross).
So as a rough estimate a low income job will in reality pay you nearly half of the listed pay amount. And it only goes up from there as you make more, hence Shawns point.
Strippers play the system well however (or any jobs with tips for that matter.)