You could always do traditional and then convert to Roth after retirement.
Thank you for the suggestion, I will have to look into this more! I'm mostly researching general rule-of-thumb and layman perspectives for what we can consider the 'average' person in my local area, aka friends and loved ones! So conversions and the like that I would not think of are extremely appreciated! :)
And therein lies the question: how will one's future marginal rate compare with one's current marginal rate?
See Maxing out your retirement accounts if you want to quantify "how much lower?" could the retirement marginal rate be vs. the current one and Roth still be better.
Note that for $36K/yr gross, qualified dividends are likely to incur 0% tax so "not much lower if at all" is a good first guess for the OP's scenario.
As stated above, I'm trying to draw as close I can get to very general broad-strokes guidelines. This is the reasoning for using the $36k (or under $39k) for life number, because it seems to be possibly one of the blandest/simplest income levels in tax terms while also being close to the 'average'. To help me clarify, if one contributes nothing but Roth to a 401k for their lifetime (consistently $36k) are they liable for ANY income or capital gains tax if their withdrawals/dividends in retirement (60+) are also $36k? Also, if that person is a single person without kids, is it correct to assume they are not eligable for ANY tax-credits/deductions income-wise such as EITC? Just the standard deduction right?
@seattlecyclone It seems the above question is answered by you, but again, I ask to clarify. For the ACA portion it seems that I will need to research your link more, thank you for the resource! For this exercise, it's essentially a situation where someone makes $36,000 and their wage grows with inflation and hopefully with the adjustments in policy numbers pretty evenly.
@ChpBstrd I still need to evolve my guidelines a bit as my understanding of IRAs grows, so for now I'm sticking with 401ks and being optimistic that earnings in retirement will be even with or greater than earnings in accumulation. Kind of a 'my blue-collar friend plans to work til 60 and die at 80' plan tax-wise. Thank you for your insight in advance!
Edit: Suffice to say, I certainly appreciate you all helping me not reinvent the wheel but simply relearn the wheel. :)