The government has today updated the definition of “poverty” to be anyone with a household income of less than one-dollar a day, resulting in the nearly everyone who was poor being pull out of poverty and into the middle-class with a stroke of a pen. Government officials explained the basis for their decision “if one dollar a day is good enough to keep starving kids in Africa out of poverty, then it’s good enough for us! It would be hypocritical and anti-science for us to claim we’re solving poverty in third world countries, yet still have had the bar set so much higher domestically.”
As a result of the change “wealthy” will be redefined as earning more than $100 per day, or approximately $36,000 per year. The government has accordingly adjusted tax rates to ensure that the wealth “pay their fair share” and instigated a 90% tax on all income that exceeds the $36,000 per year threshold.
The CEO’s or major companies have backed the change by the government, but have criticised the government for not going far enough. The Chief Executive of one of the countries largest companies commented “the government needs to do more to address the excessive wealth of the middle class by increasing taxes on anyone who earns more than one-dollar a day. It’s time for everyone to pay their fair share by paying more income tax. It is important however that existing policy around capital gains taxes is not changed, as this would disproportionately increase taxes on wealthy CEOs such as myself who derive nearly all of our wealth from stock options and gains infinancial markets.”
