Farm Bill: Context for Adjusted Gross Income Caps
On Subsidies
As Congress decides where to set "limits" for subsidy payments, this table should be handy. It shows that a ludicrously small fraction of all taxpayers fall into the upper ranges of AGI caps for farm subsidies being considered as "reforms"among farm bill conferees. So the number of farmers (full or part time) who would be affected would be even smaller.
And of course, this is before lawyers get busy restructuring subsidized farms to comply with any limits (a bustling business under current law now, which caps some payments).
One important question to ask about the impact of any proposed "limits" is how much money will they save according to the CBO score. Recall that the House-passed reforms produced only $45 million per year in savings.
Why? Because the House "reforms" were seen by CBO as impacting almost no big, wealthy farms, or their subsidy haul.
A follow up question, please? How many people would be affected?
As a reference point, David Rogers Politico points out at Politico today comparing the debate over health insurance for poor children (SCHIP) with the lard-fest that is the farm bill:
A 300 percent [of poverty line income] cap [for SCHIP eligibility] would translate into about $51,510 for a family of three — a single mother and two children, for example. In comparison, the $950,000 threshold lawmakers envision for the farm bill would be the equivalent of about 5,500 percent of poverty.
| Adjusted Gross Income | Number of Returns | Percent of Returns | Average AGI |
| Total | 134,372,678 | 100.0% | $55,238 |
| No adjusted gross income | 1,761,041 | 1.3% | -$48,530 |
| $1 under $5,000 | 11,476,416 | 8.5% | $2,631 |
| $5,000 under $10,000 | 12,114,237 | 9.0% | $7,476 |
| $10,000 under $15,000 | 11,635,684 | 8.7% | $12,481 |
| $15,000 under $20,000 | 11,126,599 | 8.3% | $17,463 |
| $20,000 under $25,000 | 9,784,167 | 7.3% | $22,419 |
| $25,000 under $30,000 | 8,738,107 | 6.5% | $27,461 |
| $30,000 under $40,000 | 13,940,405 | 10.4% | $34,718 |
| $40,000 under $50,000 | 10,618,506 | 7.9% | $44,782 |
| $50,000 under $75,000 | 18,351,037 | 13.7% | $61,450 |
| $75,000 under $100,000 | 10,449,989 | 7.8% | $86,170 |
| $100,000 under $200,000 | 10,810,367 | 8.0% | $132,334 |
| $200,000 under $500,000 | 2,737,802 | 2.0% | $288,144 |
| $500,000 under $1,000,000 | 524,506 | 0.4% | $677,248 |
| $1,000,000 under $1,500,000 | 127,925 | 0.1% | $1,210,080 |
| $1,500,000 under $2,000,000 | 56,615 | >0.05% | $1,722,378 |
| $2,000,000 under $5,000,000 | 84,070 | 0.1% | $2,980,990 |
| $5,000,000 under $10,000,000 | 21,431 | >0.05% | $6,852,066 |
| $10,000,000 or more | 13,776 | >0.05% | $27,313,795 |
Source: Internal Revenue Service, 2005.
