I would really need to see the math on this. All of the numbers. Plenty of people bitch and moan about taxes, but there’s no way income tax should result in a continually smaller paycheck because the recipient got a raise, nor should a raise be consumed entirely by taxes. Anyone who tells a story about losing all their raise to tax isn’t telling the whole story most likely, like filing for too many withholding exemptions on the W4, paying less tax, then getting slammed with a tax bill “consuming all their raise” or something.
Now, I have heard of people running into issues with the AMT, but that’s for people already making a pretty good amount of money, and that limits (crudely explained) says even though you made a bunch of money more and have a ton of write offs/deductions, the AMT floor won’t let the filer get all the deductions so they pay more tax. That also might come up if one sells a house or something and brings in a bunch of money. But that’s not a situation most people face, and they shouldn’t see it regularly. It was intended to prevent wealthy people from skipping out on taxes.