Who are the 1%?

[2pooped2pop]

I understand the movement but what I want to know is where exactly would that break be? What would be the lowest income of the 1%? What is the break and where did the term first come from? I want to know because I see a lot of people who work in offices owned by the 1%, thinking somehow that working for them makes you one. So I would just like to have an idea of who exactly is in that 1%. So technically, who are the 1%, and at what point do you slide down here with the rest of us?

anyone know?

[Whiskeytide]

1. They're like pornography...

... I can't define them, but I know them when I see them.

[2pooped2pop]

22. lol n/t

[SCantiGOP]

2. i've heard

annual income of anywhere from $350,000 to $500,000 puts someone in the top 1% income bracket.

[haele]

17. Descretionary spending - $250,000 + a year should count as a 1%'er

Medical deductions, a primary mortgage within reason, or paying off student loans should not count as part of descretionary spending, as those can mean the difference between a 1%'er and a 5%'er.
While the choice to buy a multi-million dollar mini-mansion or pay to go to MIT might be able to fall into the "un-necessary expenditure" categories, health costs usually aren't un-necessary. Someone making $350K a year with $250K a year medical bills for a disability or serious condition does not have a descretionary income of $100K, and should not be considered within the 1%.

Haele

[hfojvt]

3. I use IRS stats

and break it at about $390,000.

But obviously, it is a fuzzy line. Should somebody at $392,000 be considered part of the 1% and somebody at $385,000 not be considered part of the 1%? What if one lives in high cost NYC and the other lives in lower cost Kansas City?

Personally I think that the top 4% (by which I mean the top 5% without the top 1%) also has an unfair amount of power and luxury and needs to pay higher taxes as well.

But I feel that way about the top 19% too.

And that's just divisive (I guess).

[TBF]

6. It's not just income -

there are professionals making that kind of money who are definitely not starving - but do have student loans to pay back and don't live that luxuriously ... they may have zero assets when you subtract all their debt. And then there are folks who make that amount or less but have inherited generously from wealthy parents and live a lifestyle we wouldn't even be able to imagine.

But, I agree with your general thesis - if folks are making in the six figures in this country (while so many are down making $30K or so) they should be able to pay a bit more. Also would argue that I'd like to see that tax money going towards infrastructure, education, health care rather than costly myriad wars for oil.

[Juneboarder]

7. Yep, just look at my net worth

<$225,000+>

and that's just taking into account the minor 50% decrease in my home value. I basically work to pay off a home that is tremendously underwater; but wait! I'm on an interest only loan, so actually just paying the banks a little interest here and there to keep a home occupied.

[hfojvt]

11. I still think income is more important than money

I'd rather have $1 million in income than $5 million in net worth. I think the income would make me better off. In fact, with that much income, it would not take me very long to save $5 million. And although $300,000 income with $50,000 in debt is better off (perhaps) than $450,000 with $400,000 in debt, the income of the latter still puts them in the top 1% by income.

However, I have said many times, that I doubt if the $300,000 income family is really on the side of the bottom 80% either, even though they are part of the 99%.

[TBF]

15. Income can be lost tomorrow when you're fired -

so I don't buy that argument.

Also don't like your divisive techniques - do you also disdain the 1%ers who support the movement? You know Karl Marx wasn't well off but Friedrich Engles was the son of a wealthy cotton manufacturer. It didn't stop him from being more on the side of the working class than many of the folks on this website who still think capitalism is a preferable economic system.

[hfojvt]

20. many people with high incomes

continue to get paid even after they are fired. Even Stan van Gundy, after he got fired by the University of Wisconsin, was getting paid $200,000 over the next three years. I sure would like to get that much money even for working, to say nothing of getting that money for not working. Of course, Stan also quickly got an assistant coaches job from his brother.

Income can be lost and wealth can be lost, but while you have the income you are still part of the top 1% by income.

Also, I have no divisive technigue, unless pointing out facts can be said to be divisive.

In his autobiography, Howard Fast wrote a story that I thought was very interesting. Howard was running for office as a communist and was having dinner with a wealthy donor/benefactor. As they talked after dinner, there was an ice cream dessert sitting on the table that was starting to melt. Howard asked "shouldn't we put that in a freezer?" and the other guy just waved his hand "oh, somebody will clean that up later, don't worry about it" And Howard, having grown up poor, was thinking "my God, this is ice cream, a rare and precious treat, and you are just going to let it melt??"

Howard wrote that this incident sorta drove the point home, that no matter how much the rich my sympathize with the poor, and want to help the poor, they do not think like the poor.

But I do not disdain any members of the top 5% who support the bottom 60%. I just don't think they are very numerous.

[TBF]

21. Again it depends on many factors -

I grew up in a factory family and have quite a high income now (not top 1% but not far from that). There are certainly others like me who grew up poor but rose to professional level with education. I'm still more comfortable with my old friends than I am with folks we associate with now. So, I wouldn't paint too broad a brush ... but I will say my experiences with the very wealthy are similar to those Howard had. They may not mind paying more taxes (like Mr. Buffett), but I agree that they have no clue what it is like to live paycheck to paycheck.

[2pooped2pop]

23. agree

[Modern_Matthew]

4. The numbers are more symbolic than statistical. Class consciousness. :-) nt

[2pooped2pop]

24. yes I agree with that

but it's the ones with real money who are buying our laws. That's who the 1% are to me. The ones with enough money to buy laws to get them more money, while shitting on the little people, the entire time.


But I also wanted to know a ball park of what those people might earn.

[valerief]

5. I think they need to make 1.3 million annually. That's wages and earnings not capital gains. nt

[Terry in Austin]

19. That's the average for the whole top 1%.

You can enter the top 1% with a "mere" $506,553 annual income (99th percentile).

[PETRUS]

8. Net worth of about $10 million puts you in the top 1%

And the curve rises sharply from there. That said, "the 1%" is a figurative term and has less to do with a line defined by wealth than with who does and does not have a voice in public policy. This group is actually a subset of the 1% - closer to the 1/10th of a % - but does employ highly skilled people in their service. Some charts:

[EC]

9. About 400 households, that's who

400 households in America made more cash than the lower 50% combined. I'd say that is the upper 1%. It's not the ones making $500,000. or less a year.



I wanted to add this on edit: As the data below show, incomes reported by tax returns at the high end of the income spectrum fell from 2008 to 2009, as did their share of the nation's income and income taxes paid. In 2009, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 36.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 16.9 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI), compared to 2008 when those figures were 38.0 percent and 20.0 percent, respectively. Both of those figures-share of income and share of taxes paid-were their lowest since 2003 when the top 1 percent earned 16.7 percent of adjusted gross income and paid 34.3 percent of federal individual income taxes.


http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html

[hfojvt]

12. the top 1% would be 1.3 million households

the Fab 400 is like the top .001% and it is not true that they made more cash than the bottom 50%. They have more wealth than the bottom 50%, but the Forbes 400 (the 400 richest by wealth) is not the same as the Fab 400 (the 400 richest by income).

When it comes to income, the Fab 400 only got 1.59% of it which is still quite a bit for a mere .00003% of households. The bottom 50% got 12.5% of income in 2006.

Also, the Tax Foundation, although there stats are generally accurate, as far as I have checked, is a rightwing anti-tax organization. You can find more progressive tax information here http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/169 if I may plug myself :blush:

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Good ole Rep. Paul Ryan uses an yearly income of $460,700 and a net worth of $10 million as the cut

off.

[hfojvt]

14. both of those seem pretty high

and I still think it is a disadvantage to upwardly define it like politicians are always doing. It allows them to do something that primarily benefits those making between $100,000 and $500,000 (the top 19%) and claim they are helping the "middle class" even though 80% of households make less than $100,000 a year.

The top 20% is the upper class whether they want to admit it or not.

[-..__...]

13. These guys...

[2pooped2pop]

25. lol. thanks for that. n/t

[Terry in Austin]

16. Entry into the 1%

> who are the 1%, and at what point do you slide down here with the rest of us?

Short answer: half a million a year. Anything less, you're down here with us.

The one percent is actually a pretty good line of demarcation. US income distribution is a classic "hockey stick" graph, shown here. As you can see, the "knee" of the sharp upcurve comes in right about at the top 1%.

Entry to the top 1% means the 99th percentile (plus a dollar) -- income for the 99th percentile is $506,553. Move up just .5 of a percentile, and it's $815,868. And the infamous one-tenth of one percent is $2,0570,574. That's the hockey stick at work!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Here's some mugshots to help with identification.

[2pooped2pop]

26. love it.

wasn't expecting it. LOL