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The 1% live on capital gains from generations ago. The 1% know no wants and most likely are unaccustomed to the word "no". The 1% are as royalty and the 1% is few.
1% of the U.S. population is 3.2 million people. Do you really think 3.2 million Americans "know no wants"? Seriously?
A person at the bottom of the top 1% by income, making about $500K, has a professional or executive job and works long hours (or owns a small business), is paying a mortgage on a house worth a million or a million and a half (a nice place that no one would mistake for a mansion), and, unless he's been making $500K for years and years, has to empty out his savings account to pay for college, which costs $240,000 per kid at a good private school. It's a comfortable life, but not "rich."
12% of the U.S. population is in the top 1% for at least one year of his or her life.
If you have to ask, then you don't have enough income to be considered "the 1%."
Case closed.
What case is closed? I knew a long time before I ever started this thread that I was not anywhere close to being part of the 1%, as I am a retired high school teacher. I was presenting a statistic which I found surprising - that is all. What is your point?
Here's how it looks to me. This is just my impressions, but it's based on my network of professional acquaintances and (and family, friends, other individuals, etc) and it seems to line up for me.
15/100 are in the unemployed group
~40/100 are minimum wage group
~25/100 are that 30-50k group
~15/100 are the 50-100k group
4/100 are above 100k group
1/100 making 343k or above
EDIT: I'm well traveled and have lived and worked in places where rent for 1 bedroom apartments were over $2500/month min, and in other places where you can find the same size apt. for $400. $343k would make me feel rich in either of those places, and definitely in a very rare spot (the 1%) to be.
I have no reason to doubt that you know of lot of people and are knowledgeable and well traveled. So am I. But our personal experiences are still limited, hence the inherent interest of statistics which give us a broader perspective than our own "impressions" make possible.
I gave up on making it into the 1% a long time ago, LOL. We're happy with top 5%, which is much more easily attainable. That can be done on about 150k income.
A New York Times article (Economix, 1/17/12) agrees that the threshold for being in the top 1 per cent in household income is about $380k but states that, based on Fed data, the 1% threshold for net worth is $8.4M.
This is a very different number than that reported by the IRS -- around $1.5M.
The Fed uses a formula based on assets and liabilities. Using Fed data, about 8% of US households have a net worth exceeding $1M and the median net worth of the top 10% of US families is $1.569M.
The IRS uses the estate multiplier technique to calculate the data.
Where the true threshold is located is impossible to determine with any accuracy, but many professional financial planners & asset managers view the Fed number as being a better estimate.
1% of the U.S. population is 3.2 million people. Do you really think 3.2 million Americans "know no wants"? Seriously?
A person at the bottom of the top 1% by income, making about $500K, has a professional or executive job and works long hours (or owns a small business), is paying a mortgage on a house worth a million or a million and a half (a nice place that no one would mistake for a mansion), and, unless he's been making $500K for years and years, has to empty out his savings account to pay for college, which costs $240,000 per kid at a good private school. It's a comfortable life, but not "rich."
The 1% I'm talking about is immune to regional differences in cost of living and so forth. They might be more like "Upper 1/4%" according to actuarial tables or some other hard quantitive measure of wealth. In general terms, they are the people who will NEVER have to worry about paying bills for the rest of their lives. They live very comfortably off interest and dividends from the vast hoards of money and investments. Do you really think Mark Zuckerberg or Mark Cuban is going to worry about the cost of a posh NYC penthouse suite when they are shopping for one? Yes, even brain surgeons making $500K/year still have to worry about bills. I know doctors who make that kind of income and they still fret over kids' college tuitions and so forth.
Take a random poll of people on the street and ask them to define what "being rich" is and you'll prolly get answers from "anyone who makes more than $100K per year to "anyone who doesn't have debts". It's a very ambiguous term to be called "wealthy". The upper 1% I'm referring to don't even have to worry about whether they belong to that elite slice of the pie --- they simply know they are.
Do you think that more than 1% of all public employees in the country are making more than 394k? (And it's 394k as of 2012, likely over 400k as of today). Indeed, it is not possible. No public employee in most states and none in the federal government are making that, excepting coaches and a handful of school administrators. Abuses of a system are bad, and firefighters and cops do have unsustainable "3@50" pensions in California. Still, these kind of examples just serve as convenient proxies for exaggeration about how public employees are compensated
Full disclosure: I'm a new federal attorney and I make less than 60k.
The governor of Oregon was paid $93,600 in 2012. By contrast, there are two PAC-12 football coaches in the state who make over $1.5 million a year. The dean of the medical school makes just over $1 million a year.
A New York Times article (Economix, 1/17/12) agrees that the threshold for being in the top 1 per cent in household income is about $380k but states that, based on Fed data, the 1% threshold for net worth is $8.4M.
This is a very different number than that reported by the IRS -- around $1.5M.
The Fed uses a formula based on assets and liabilities. Using Fed data, about 8% of US households have a net worth exceeding $1M and the median net worth of the top 10% of US families is $1.569M.
The IRS uses the estate multiplier technique to calculate the data.
Where the true threshold is located is impossible to determine with any accuracy, but many professional financial planners & asset managers view the Fed number as being a better estimate.
I believe this to be more germane.
Because when your wealth starts to move into the $5-10M range, then worrying about basic and other middle class lifestyle expenses as well as the need to work start to disappear. Life styles of the rich and famous may even begin to emerge if that sort of thing deemed important.
And I think that this is really where most begin to join the 1%. No matter where you live.
Do you think that more than 1% of all public employees in the country are making more than 394k? (And it's 394k as of 2012, likely over 400k as of today). Indeed, it is not possible. No public employee in most states and none in the federal government are making that, excepting coaches and a handful of school administrators. Abuses of a system are bad, and firefighters and cops do have unsustainable "3@50" pensions in California. Still, these kind of examples just serve as convenient proxies for exaggeration about how public employees are compensated
Full disclosure: I'm a new federal attorney and I make less than 60k.
Here is a timely article from our local Newspaper...
And one more from the Wall Street Journal of a fire fighter with a 250k pension AND he has now been hired back at 176k as a consultant... so well over 400k
Then there are medical wages for prison and public hospital Doctors and even a few nurses...
Agree these are not everyday wages... yet it does show how someone in government service can be at the threshold of the 1%.
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