Posted on 01/27/2019 5:41:47 AM PST by Gamecock
Who are America’s rich?
“Not me” is the answer from a surprising segment of the population, including many people making six figures and above. Some 87% of people who make at least $90,000 a year said they weren’t rich or poor, according to new findings from polling company YouGov. (The survey asked 1,163 Americans how much money someone needs to be rich or poor.)
When it comes to who’s poor, most respondents (68%) thought people who make the equivalent of the federal minimum wage ($7.25 an hour, or $15,080 a year) fell into that category. “The point at which most Americans think you’ve escaped being poor comes at around $30,000,” wrote YouGov’s lead data journalist Matthew Smith.
People start to be considered “rich” when they make at least $90,000, the survey found. But only 44% of poll participants said someone making $90,000 a year was rich. Meanwhile, hitting those six figures seems to make all the difference: 56% of those surveyed said they considered people who earn $100,000 a year rich.
Josh Bivens, research director at the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, said the findings relate to the growing gap between the rich and poor, and middle class and everyone else. The average annual income of America’s top 1% was $1.8 million in 2015, Bivens noted. That was a far cry from the $100,000 a year deemed rich in the survey he said.
But many people seemed to feel they exist in a middle zone between poverty and affluence, likely influenced by the cost of living in their respective towns and cities: 64% of the participants said they weren’t rich or poor. The survey sheds light on attitudes about poverty and affluence, and how they align with official calculations surrounding “haves” and “have nots.”
There are clear definitions of poverty in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for example, draws the 2019 poverty line at $25,750 per year for a four-person family. Some 12.3% of Americans lived in poverty in 2017, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau figures. The median household income was $61,372 in 2017, according to the Census.
YouGov’s survey on “rich” and “poor” labels arrives as income inequality has become a growing concern for many observers and policymakers. Lawmakers across the country are weighing whether to increase minimum hourly wages to $15. The District of Columbia and three states are planning to make $15 the minimum; cities including New York City, N.Y., San Francisco, Calif. and Seattle, Wash. are already there.
Being somewhere between rich and poor doesn’t necessarily mean living comfortably. Costs of living can vary widely across the country and many households have heavy debts and costs to contend with, like student-loan obligations or child-care bills. Likewise, a lack of savings for emergencies and retirement also make people feel financially unstable.
There are probably two things going on with the survey: An underestimation of how much more the top 1% earned and a broadening of what it means to be rich, Bivens said. “It mostly means something being less than yachts and mansions, free from economic anxiety about paying next month’s bills,” he added. That’s sadly something lots of people aspire to, but don’t experience.”
It may not be surprising that people making at least $90,000 didn’t view themselves as rich. With the nation’s highest earners so high above and the cost of housing in cities like New York and San Francisco and Seattle, it takes a lot of money to not be housing insecure, experts say. People earning $90,000 a year compare themselves to others, just like someone earning $180,000 a year.
“I think that’s a very human thing,” Bivens said.
Sounds like an affirmative action recipient. Especially if it’s in NYC. Women are a protected class under EEOC regs and employers act accordingly. In case you didn’t know. BTW how many white males have you seen working the cushy $80k jobs at the post office lately? You don’t see any in Florida. Last time I was at the post office I asked a customer why that was so. His reply was the reason there’s no white guys behind the counter is because “the pay isn’t high enough”. Give me a break. An $80k gig in Florida would be like manna from heaven.
If you pay for multiple kids to go to school, pay a mortgage, pay utilities, pay for the upkeep of the house, buy groceries, health and dental insurance, and one or more car payments, then that $90,000 isn’t so impressive.
In addition to the comments about cost of living vs location, I have another.
Once you have a decent listed income, many, many things become more expensive as you lose government subsidies. I’m thinking of college tuition, as one example. I have a liberal relative who deliberately stayed unemployed and partially employed for longer than he needed to so that his daughter could get a free ride at the state college, because it made their FAFSA application look needier.
This topic is well discussed under the topic of the marginal tax effect of phasing out government benefits.
25k for a family of four, but what they don’t tell you is: free health care, section 8 housing, free phone, reduced water/electric/heat, free school lunch, WIC, welfare, SNAP, etc. I’d say that brings the total up to about 70K, very close to what a real working family makes.
$90,000 in DC is nothing compared to $90,000 in rural, low tax state.
Our household income is substantially above that level. We are scrambling to get every penny in the bank to avoid being dependent on Social Security.
My daughter earned her job thru her background, leadership and interview skills. 2 girl friends of hers (among others) applied for the same job.
Income/Outgo is one thing.
Accumulating Wealth is another.
You can bring in over 100k a year and still be poor as a pauper and in a self inflicted debt hole..
“I suspect this is Dems priming the pumps to raise taxes on those earning above $90k.”
Absolutely - on Joe and Jane Average. I will bet you that $90K that AOC will not touch the truly rich like Meryl Streep or Leonardo DiCaprio or Warren Buffet or Zuckerberg or Mike Bloomberg.
Those people NEVER pay. They buy the politicians that write the tax laws!
Wait! Maybe not $90,000...
LOL!! 90K was once known as 9K and bought as much as 90K buys today. 1957 was the year. You could buy a 3 BR house for 10K in the burbs. If you made 15K a year, that was a great salary, the avg job only brought you about $5200 a year. Then again, a doctor visit was like $15, and they drove to your house. Yup we are sooo much better off today. s/
P.S. The wages were the same in 1962 where I earned $5200 a year as a new teacher. I left that job for a $71 a day job. (once a month)
I’m rich! I’ve had an incredible life: Been married 33 years; have 18 children; have traveled extensively; lived all over; and have a God who loves me. I went to college back when we had only 6 kids and made less than $12,000 a year. We were rich then.
I make over 18 times that now, and I’m still rich. My home is in Florida, and every morning I wake up feeling blessed. I’m currently on an OCONUS contract, and appreciate our country more every day. We are all rich; too many don’t understand that there’s no amount of money that brings contentment. Living the life God grants us is richness in itself.
Well, some expenses are unavoidable. I support a 2nd household (sick family member with 3 young sons). We all have different situations.
When I was making a wee bit over $100K I didn’t consider myself rich, well to do certainly, but rich? No.
OTOH, the cost of living in Silicon Valley was so high, most of that was eaten up by normal day-to-day expenses.
I’m rich by the measure in both your posts.
I LIKE living in the only time and place in all of recorded history where the poor people are fat!
$90 or $100 thousand a year? “Rich?” LOL! Not even close.
In NYC if you’re single and you make less than $100 thousand a year, you’re poor. $100 thousand a year there allows you a middle class lifestyle. The costs are certainly less than that in other places but if you’ve got a large student loan payment to make - which many in white collar jobs who earn around that amount do - that again can easily put you on a par with NYC costs when accounting for that monthly payment.
Ditto. Too many don't live within their means.
Agreed. In the Soviet Union, all it took was owning two cows to be considered a Kulak and thus to suffer horribly at the hands of the commies. Gotta pay for all that socialism they want somehow. Once you confiscate all the wealth of the billionaires and millionaires it doesn’t come close to covering the cost. So they’ve got to define “rich” down so they can force upper middle and middle class folks to pay their “fair share”.
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