[Verginius Rufus]

Sorry--left something out of the last sentence.

I meant to say that if the average wage is just under $50,000, it can't be true that making $50,000 puts you in the top 10% of wage earners.

[scdown]

I think he's using the wrong number. Look at IRS aggregate return data for 2001-2009 (Excel spreadsheet)

You can see a top 10% figure of $52,000 or so, in CONSTANT DOLLARS - so you can't use the figure absolutely, to say "52,000 puts you in the top 10%", rather, you use that table to say "the income level that puts you in the top 10% has not changed significantly in the last 10 years" (interestingly enough, that's true for all of the brackets, except the top .1%, which went DOWN).

If you look at the CURRENT DOLLARS figure, it winds up being around $112,000.