With all the rhetoric swirling around the debate over the fiscal cliff and the consequences of "going over," I found this interactive feature from the Washington Post quite enlightening — it enables the user to calculate how the outcome of the fiscal cliff negotiations will affect particular households based on household composition and income.
An added bonus: the levels of income available to be selected as parameters represent the 20th, 50th, 80th, 99th, and 99.9th percentiles of U.S. income for each of six household types: single; single head of household with two kids; married without kids and under 65; married with two kids; married with one kid in college; married over 65. Just seeing these numbers provides a concrete perspective on income inequality in this county.
