2000 Poll: Nineteen percent of Americans said they were in the top 1 percent of wage earners

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july272009/american_money_dj_7-27-09.php

Jul-27-2009

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Americans believe, as part of their cultural mythology, that potentially anyone can get rich. Wealth really comes from three basic sources: You can win it, inherit it or be born in the right place at the right time.

None of these things are in your sphere of control, and if you know you are not in line to receive any inheritance, to believe that one of the other two will strike you, is self-delusional.

A study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, found that only 2.7% of Americans receive $50,000 or more in inheritance; 91.9% receive nothing. Thus, the attempt by some conservatives to eliminate inheritance taxes—which, for PR, they always call "death taxes"—would take a huge bite out of government revenues for the benefit of less than 1% of the population. So, forget inheritance as a way to get rich.

People vote their aspirations, not their reality. In a poll during the 2000 election, people were asked if they were in the top 1 percent of earners. Nineteen percent of Americans said they were in the top 1 percent and another 20 percent expect to be someday. So immediately there is more than a third of Americans who don’t oppose tax cuts for the wealthy because they think it somehow does now, or will one day, apply to them.

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I don't know whether to laugh or cry?

[Scuba]

1. So 39% think they're in the top 1%, or will be....

.... while last year the Kochs increased their wealth by $100,000,000 every week. Each. Net.

[HughBeaumont]

2. RENOUNCE Reaganomics NOW, Dumberica.

Amazing, absolutely AMAZING that people still think this works and will work for them. This should make us all cry, because as long as there are even a small percentage of people who think like this, nothing is going to change.

Horatio Alger is POISON.

[Proud Public Servant]

3. Look at this chart and you see the problem

The top 1% is so far above everybody else that, I suspect, they disappear from people's consciousness. And the bottom 80% are all clustered very close together. So it becomes easy for the top 20% to come to the conclusion that they are at the very top of the heap; everyone seems to be below them, and those above them actually breathe life into the cliche "top-out-of-sight."

Edit: And this is old data; imagine how much worse it looked in 2009, or now.

[Speck Tater]

4. And 70% think they are of above average intelligence. Go figure. nt

[qb]

5. Wow. My 6th-grader has a better grasp of statistics than the wealthiest 19% of Americans.

:bounce:

[Rex]

6. Nodoby ever said we Merkians were smert!

1%...10%, like anyone is counting.

[marmar]

7. ........