Actually, Gibson was more or less correct.

The average professor there makes $74,900 per year, so an average family of two professors would be almost exactly $150,000. If the two of them are closer to the top of the scale, Gibson would be correct.

Scoop
Even by your link that would only be the salary of a full professor, an associate Professor is called at $60k and an assistant at 50K, unless they were both head of their department, I would be very surprised if they made $50k more than the standard, and even then it would be unlikely.

The point is that 200K is a very nice income, and way above anything Middle Class where family incomes do well to be a quarter of that at best, and fighting hard to manage that much.

Let’s be clear on this. The way the income tax structure works in America is that any tax increase for families who earn over $200,000 per year would only be on the income above $200,000. Everything below $200,000 would be taxed the same. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of taxes that pervades our society. There is no such thing as “being pushed into a higher tax bracket.” Only the amounts in the higher bracket are taxed at the higher rate.

This was only one of Gibson’s gaffes. In this one, even his final statement “But that is — you’re in a situation where you’re taking money out of the economy, is what I’m saying.” is wrong.

You take away a tax break for someone making $200,000 and give it to people making much less than that. The richer person might have save more of that money. The poorer people will spend more of it.

If you are trying to encourage consumption as was Gibson’s premise, then he surely does not know what he is talking about. Just shows you how much good his 35 years of experience is worth.

I don’t think it’s just Charlie Gibson who is out of touch about the life of a college professor. There’s a general impression out there that these are elite jobs. Maybe people assume because you need advanced degrees that you get paid better than a teacher but at the end of the day professor = teacher with more letters at the end of your name. Neither profession pays much.