The fiscal cliff: Calculate how much it will cost you

There's still no deal to prevent the double-whammy of harsh tax hikes and spending cuts kicking in on Jan. 1. Who will feel the most pain if we take the plunge?

A man dressed as Santa Claus speaks outside the U.S. Capitol before making his way to House Speaker John Boehner's office on Dec. 12.
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

After several days of apparent progress, negotiations on a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff stalled on Wednesday. House Speaker John Boehner, the lead negotiator for Republicans, is vowing to hold a vote on his own plan to raise taxes on people earning over $1 million a year, sparing most Americans from the loss of Bush-era tax hikes but leaving in place deep, potentially damaging automatic spending cuts due to hit at year's end. President Obama has threatened to veto Boehner's bill, known as Plan B, although it appears dead-on-arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Obama said the GOP was refusing to strike a compromise due to a grudge against him, and he challenged Republicans to "peel off the war paint" and make a deal on a 10-year, $2 trillion deficit-cutting agreement to avoid the cliff. Each day without an agreement, though, increases the chance that the fiscal cliff will actually hit. Economists have warned that could trigger another recession. How would going over the cliff affect ordinary Americans? Here, a brief guide:

Would the fiscal cliff cause instant calamity?

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.