[Mad Dawg]

I'm for it.

[Huck]

They need to do this by region or else it’s pretty useless. Some places cost a lot more to live. But it’s true ppl don’t realize where they fit into the picture.

[Graybeard58]

If you're a teacher married to a policeman, your combined household income puts you in the top 25 percent of all households in the nation.

These are the "rich" people Hillary wants to raise taxes on. Not the people in her income range and not the "poor" who pay no taxes anyway. It's you and me brother.

[MSF BU]

The Millionaire Next Door delves into this a bit. It would be interesting to see how many of those high earners (in any given year) are there because of the sale of a home.

[Tenacious 1]

The rich irony here is that politicians and most elites have no clue about how middle class America earns and spends. They have lost touch with day to day living for most of the country. In their posh existence of power, popularity and self indulgence, they pander to their peers and bloviate their egomaniacal views and opinions to anyone that will listen in an effort to prop up their self worth. Their existence is sold as a charitable service to this nation and future generations. Truth is, their loyalties are hidden under a cloak of insecurity about their true colors. After looking in the mirror, they are resigned to protect the image they hope others have of them.

[bobsatwork]

As you see, there's a massive disparity between the haves and have-nots...... Horsepoop. The most massive disparity is likely age. I have been in every one of those "wealth" brackets at some stage in my life. A lifelong accumulated wealth of $860k does NOT have you rubbing shoulders with those who make $25Mil per movie. Those "wealth" categories are working-class categories.

[petercooper]

It’s not how much you make, but what you do with it.

[cajungirl]

Damn! I am rich! Who knew!

[SoldierMedic]

Wow. I don’t feel so poor now.

[jrp]

If you're a teacher married to a policeman, your combined household income puts you in the top 25 percent of all households in the nation.

That's funny. Police and teachers (unions) here in Cali are always whining about how poor and underpaid they are.

[never4get]

“If you’re a teacher married to a policeman, your combined household income puts you in the top 25 percent of all households in the nation.”

On Long Island the yearly salary for this couple would exceed $200,000 with tremendous benefits (almost nothing out of pocket). If the Police Officer hubby works a little overtime they can get the annual payola over $250K.As well, when they both retire their yearly incomes can approach their working incomes (perhaps exceed)depending on how many vacation, sick days they cash in and how much OT they work their last three years, all going towards their gross income. God Bless our politicians in the State of New York and the Long Island Counties for making our teachers and cops very wealthy (sarcasm). I feel sick....

[JasonC]

The balance of the article is about the amount of financial handholding the finance industry hands out as the level of assets rises. Not stated is the demonstrable fact that the extra hand holding, in the aggregate, does not help those whose hands are being held earn anything more, and in fact costs them considerably in useless fees. The second half of the article would have been more honest if the tone had been "and once you have this much, the leeches will swarm to batten on and take their 1-2% per year, if you let them".

The article is trying desperately to pretend it is some stacked deck game, when anyone with anything to invest can assure himself better than average returns by using low fee indexes. Actively managed instead can only make more somewhere if another actively managed makes less. In the aggregate, they too have to get the average return - minus the vastly higher fees involved.

The other things missing in the whole article are age and household size breakdowns. Two married workers in mid to late career are going to count as "rich" unless they have been financially irresponsible their entire lives. A single person just out of college isn't going to have any assets, outside a tiny second generation trust fund set.

[Soren]

Get to the top by spending like you’re at the bottom.

[ctdonath2]

Median world income is about $2 per person per day.
If you’re making more than half the world’s population, you’re not poor.

[kidd]

Freeper economist needed.

The article makes the following statement:

Net worth, as every financially precocious schoolchild knows, is the sum of one's assets -- home equity, investments, savings accounts, retirement funds, cars, furnishings and such things as jewelry, furs, wine collection, old baseball cards -- minus all outstanding liabilities such as mortgage balance, revolving and credit card debt, college loans and so on

Is this correct (see the bold): net worth includes "home equity"... minus "mortgage balance"? Shouldn't this be "home value" minus "mortgage balance"?

[KarlInOhio]

Does anyone know where to find more finely divided percentile break points?

This had 20% groups except for the top two were 10%, and it had figures for the median of each group. I guess that means the actual figures then were for the 10th, 30th, 50th, 70th, 85th and 95th percentiles. I would like to see the break points for income and wealth in 5% or even 1% increments.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

It’s incredible to me that people think they can’t get by on $40k a year. My essential expenses (all food, clothing, shelter, taxes, utilities, etc.) don’t come to more than $400 a month, and half of that is fancy food.

[Proud2BeRight]

Did I read the chart wrong? Or is the data used six years old.

[Reeses]

As you see, there's a massive disparity between the haves and have-nots. We live in a country that once celebrated itself as egalitarian...

One of the keys to happiness is to not compare yourself to others. Your happiness should not be contingent on there being no one else happier than you. It should have no bearing. This article is meant to summon the demons of envy to bring destruction, both to a person's happiness and to those they envy. This is election year class-warfare designed to elect Satan herself.

The United States has never been celebrated for being an egalitarian utopia like the USSR tried to create, although the same forces that created that evil empire are trying their hardest.

[wardaddy]

asset rich.......cash poor