Poll with Preface
We're often told that taxes/rents (often the same thing in a feudal manor) for medieval serfs was crushing, and that we should be grateful under capitalism.
I've been lucky to dodge housing rents/mortgages for awhile, but that's not available for most, and I'm thinking to when I lived a "normal" American life. I was lucky if rent was less than half my monthly income, and typically I was paying far more than half my income just in rent or mortgage, not counting taxes. This was true even back in the late 1990s when I paid $400 for a 2-bedroom apartment. That was about 50-60% of my minimum wage income.
(I'm including mortgages in this, because 90%+ of any 30 year mortgage in the first years is going to interest, NOT to owning, so it is a form of rent, and most people refinance or move before they pay significant principle.)
Today I looked it up, and generally rents/taxes for an unfree medieval serf (next step up from a slave) were around 50% of their labor, plus incidentals for special occasions. In exchange for "rent" they received many benefits that taxes provide, like policing and military protection. (This percent went up in times of war.)
In pure terms of rents+taxes, it doesn't seem like we're any better off, and in fact as of 2025 it seems like we're much worse off.
Now that I've biased you, the post contains the poll.