During an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney "defined middle income as $200,000 to $250,000 a year." Here's the exchange:
“No one can say my plan is going to raise taxes on middle-income people, because principle number one is (to) keep the burden down on middle-income taxpayers,” Romney told host George Stephanopoulos.
“Is $100,000 middle income?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“No, middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less,” Romney responded.
The AP reports, "His campaign later clarified that Romney was referencing household income, not individual income." In other words—Romney agrees with President Barack Obama, who wants Bush-era tax cuts to be extended for household incomes of $250,000 or less.
According to Reuters' David Rohde, "Based on 2010 census data, the middle class would be the sixty percent of Americans with household incomes from $20,001 to $100,065." And MyBudget360 said of the Census data, "The median household income for Americans is $50,221. The above curve seems more balanced out but Census data tops out at “$200,000 or more” so it doesn’t break down data as clearly as the individual Social Security wage data. 3.9 percent of households make more than $200,000 a year. So the incredible majority of Americans make less than $200,000 and this is for overall household data so we have many with two or even more income earners here."
Update: New York magazine's Jonathan Chait looks at Romney's tax position(s) and adds, "The basic problem for Republicans is that their highest policy priority is to cut the effective tax rate paid by the richest 1 percent of Americans, but the vast majority of the voters don’t share that goal."
