How do they calculate your household income when you can’t afford a household?
I think you’re being glib, but my assumption is they are using household in the IRS sense, I e. A household consists of any one taxpayer and whoever they can claim as dependents.
No, I honestly didn’t know. Thank you. So if more than one person lives in a house, if they are unrelated (i.e. roommates, no dependents) it’s more than one household?
Yes, for tax purposes, which then implies such a metric can be used for income reporting, as is this case with this chart. After all, if you and a platonic roommate were sharing an apartment, you probably wouldn’t want to include their income on your filings to the IRS. For one, the illegality of falsely claiming a dependent, but also simply because the last thing you want the government thinking is that you made more money than you actually did.
I didn’t realize that you were linking to the same paper I had found independently and is the source of the parent comment. The way they are calculating household income isn’t the same as the IRS.
Household income refers to total income received by all members of household, divided by the square root of the household.
It’s a wonky calculation.
