Wall Street journal says: "An annual salary above $506,000 puts you in the top 1%, while you need to make less than $2,500 a year to be in the bottom 1%. "
Mind you, it's a bit oversimplified, as it doesn't include such variables as family size, or accumulated wealth (I believe any meaningful conversation of the 1% can't just be about current income). Also of course local cost of living has a great deal of influence on what day-to-day life is really like at any given income level. All that being said, $506,000/year is a lot of money anywhere, for any family.
Depends on 1% of what. 1% of Bronies that make a podcast, maybe. Economic 1%, you must be dreaming. If we were in the 1%, I would make my own animation studio, animal shelter, private school, etc. I would not be riding the train every day and saving vacation and money for 2 years so I can go to Japan for a couple of weeks.
Not really. The 1% starts at around $250-500k per annum. You don't need to be megarich to be a one-percenter, it's just more like a general lack of worry and the ability to buy large amounts of luxury goods and services. Those goods can range from "a couple hundred monthly in comics," to "a really nice car," to, if you're my friend's uncle, "a fifteen million dollar pier in Santa Monica." Also, because the US is batfuck crazy, lump in healthcare and other insurances with those luxury goods and services.
Edited because I didn't read the whole thread and there seems to be some argument on figures.
The useful bit's on page 4, where you can see a rough breakdown of number of tax filings versus household incomes. The top 1% is the top 900 filings or so, which is slightly more than the number of filings at $500,000 or above. So we can say that to be in the top 1% you needed to be making just under $500k a year as of four years ago.
Maybe from a salary point of view, but from a lifestyle point of view you'd have to admit you're closer to the 1% than someone in poverty.
Are you kidding? Do you know what the 1% live like? What that level of income affords? It makes me look like a pauper by comparison. The disparity of wealth and power between me and the "1%" is far greater than that between me and zero.
True wealth is so far beyond me that I'd might as well not exist on the same plane as it. Those people make many times what I make, doing less, and paying surprisingly little in the way of taxes by comparison.
Maybe from a salary point of view, but from a lifestyle point of view you'd have to admit you're closer to the 1% than someone in poverty.
Are you kidding? Do you know what the 1% live like? What that level of income affords? It makes me look like a pauper by comparison.The people in the bottom of the 1% can buy a car as casually as you buy a video game console. The upper 1%, the real wealthy people, can buy a luxury car as casually as you buy chewing gum.
If only blockquoting was like the blockquoting of yore.
Also, I would like to know if 2bfree works, and how old he is, and his currently living arrangements are.
Your lifestyle changes when you have a decent career/job, live on your own, and are frugal enough to afford luxuries like vacations and trips to various parts of the world.
The upper 1%, the real wealthy people, can buy a luxury car as casually as you buy chewing gum.
One of the interesting things to me is the distance between the bottom of that 1%, and the top. I really need to do the math on this at some point, or find the place where someone else has.
If you're making $500K/year in one of the higher cost-of-living parts of the US, and are supporting a family of four, you can't really buy luxury cars as casually as chewing gum. Top-level luxury cars can run $200K or more, and most rational people wouldn't spend 2/5 of their annual salary without thinking about it (especially if they don't have tremendous wealth, a separate but related issue). But there are plenty of people wealthy enough to spend that kind of money without really thinking. The concentration of wealth in only a small number of families is even more extreme than the 1% statistics show.
On a related note: I loved this article, and especially this quote from it:
Thus you can imagine my amazement this summer when I watched the Republicans in Congress push the United States to the brink of default - and the world to the brink of ruin - over whether to repeal a portion of the Bush tax cuts and raise my taxes by 3.5%. I know a lot of people with high incomes and even the conservatives among them were confused by that sequence of events. Here is a secret about rich people: we wouldn't have noticed a 3.5% tax increase. That is not only because there isn't a material difference between having $1 million and $965,000, which is obvious, but also because most of us don't actually know how much money we are going to make in a given year. Most income at that level is the result of profits rather than salary, whether it comes in the form of bonuses, stock options, partnership distributions, dividends or capital gains. Profits are unpredictable and they tend to vary wildly. At my own firm, the general rule of thumb is that if we are within 5% of our budget for the year, everyone is happy and no one complains. A variation of 3.5% is merely a random blip.
There's this creepy guy at karate with no concept of personal space. Today we were doing 2-person stretching, and when he was pushing on my back, he was keeping his head right behind mine. When he was counting, it sounding like he was whispering sweet nothings in my ear.
Maybe from a salary point of view, but from a lifestyle point of view you'd have to admit you're closer to the 1% than someone in poverty.
Are you kidding? Do you know what the 1% live like? What that level of income affords? It makes me look like a pauper by comparison. The disparity of wealth and power between me and the "1%" is far greater than that between me and zero.
True wealth is so far beyond me that I'd might as well not exist on the same plane as it. Those people make many times what I make, doing less, and paying surprisingly little in the way of taxes by comparison.
------------------------------------------------------------- What I had in mind was the fact that people in poverty have this constant hammer waiting to fall on them if they make one mistake that affects their finances. They are making choices between what basic necessities of life they are going to spend money on at any given moment.
Meanwhile the difference between say someone making 65-100k a year and someone making 500k or even a million a year is really a matter of the quality of the toys they can buy. The pedigree of the wood in their furniture or the leather in their car seats. They both can pretty much go anywhere on vacation, the difference being how many stars their hotel will have or whether they take coach or a private jet to get there.
It is my contention that as a matter of freedom that money gives you, someone making say 65-100k a year has more in common with a millionaire than someone living in the projects on welfare.
It's true that after a certain point, once your daily necessities are met and you feel relatively secure, happiness plateaus regardless of your wealth. At that point, money becomes power, potential to do things and take risks. The poorer you are, the fewer risks you can take with your capital. Rym, as of right now, could not found (for example) a broadcasting company. However, if he made 1,000,000 a year, founding another company and investing in it would not have as much risk of destroying his life.
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WSJ calculator to tell you what percent you are.
Mind you, it's a bit oversimplified, as it doesn't include such variables as family size, or accumulated wealth (I believe any meaningful conversation of the 1% can't just be about current income). Also of course local cost of living has a great deal of influence on what day-to-day life is really like at any given income level. All that being said, $506,000/year is a lot of money anywhere, for any family.
Edited because I didn't read the whole thread and there seems to be some argument on figures.
The useful bit's on page 4, where you can see a rough breakdown of number of tax filings versus household incomes. The top 1% is the top 900 filings or so, which is slightly more than the number of filings at $500,000 or above. So we can say that to be in the top 1% you needed to be making just under $500k a year as of four years ago.
True wealth is so far beyond me that I'd might as well not exist on the same plane as it. Those people make many times what I make, doing less, and paying surprisingly little in the way of taxes by comparison.
They buy luxury cars like you buy $1 apps. They buy luxury cars like you buy Steam games during a sale. You never play them, they never drive them.
Also, I would like to know if 2bfree works, and how old he is, and his currently living arrangements are.
Your lifestyle changes when you have a decent career/job, live on your own, and are frugal enough to afford luxuries like vacations and trips to various parts of the world.
If you're making $500K/year in one of the higher cost-of-living parts of the US, and are supporting a family of four, you can't really buy luxury cars as casually as chewing gum. Top-level luxury cars can run $200K or more, and most rational people wouldn't spend 2/5 of their annual salary without thinking about it (especially if they don't have tremendous wealth, a separate but related issue). But there are plenty of people wealthy enough to spend that kind of money without really thinking. The concentration of wealth in only a small number of families is even more extreme than the 1% statistics show.
On a related note: I loved this article, and especially this quote from it:
True wealth is so far beyond me that I'd might as well not exist on the same plane as it. Those people make many times what I make, doing less, and paying surprisingly little in the way of taxes by comparison.
-------------------------------------------------------------
What I had in mind was the fact that people in poverty have this constant hammer waiting to fall on them if they make one mistake that affects their finances. They are making choices between what basic necessities of life they are going to spend money on at any given moment.
Meanwhile the difference between say someone making 65-100k a year and someone making 500k or even a million a year is really a matter of the quality of the toys they can buy. The pedigree of the wood in their furniture or the leather in their car seats. They both can pretty much go anywhere on vacation, the difference being how many stars their hotel will have or whether they take coach or a private jet to get there.
It is my contention that as a matter of freedom that money gives you, someone making say 65-100k a year has more in common with a millionaire than someone living in the projects on welfare.
At that point, money becomes power, potential to do things and take risks. The poorer you are, the fewer risks you can take with your capital.
Rym, as of right now, could not found (for example) a broadcasting company. However, if he made 1,000,000 a year, founding another company and investing in it would not have as much risk of destroying his life.
I have strange friends.