I was lurking on Reddit and I saw someone claiming that nowadays governments will do everything to make you out of poverty but moment you went above poverty line, taxes and all of that will make you way worse than what you were initially. I wonder if that is true.
Here's a recent breakdown of which groups pay what in taxes and what they make roughly per year (Household USA 2023)
Bottom 20% about 1% or negative 30k-ish and below
20–40% about 6% 48k-ish
40–60% about 6% 70k-ish
60–80% about 16% 110k-ish
Top 20% about 70% 250k-ish
top 1% being about 27% 580k-ish
Top .1% 2M-ish
Being poor means you're not paying as much or at all into the system. So I guess if your ultimate goal is to contribute as little as possible, sure being poor is a way to do that. But, being poor has plenty of pretty severe negative impacts on your life. Others here have described how taxes work as you make more so I won't get into that. Long story short, if you're being poor strictly as a way to "resist" you're just choosing to have a worse life with less options. Especially in the USA. If you have the intellectual and/or physical ability to be employed, try to be at the highest level/pay as possible. Money doesn't solve all your problems but it makes most solutions easier to obtain.