[NicoleGTalum]

Rush is stating that anyone making $50,000 a year (and more) is in the top ten percent of wage earners. How is that possible?

[SargeK]

The median family income is a little under $50,000. (It's gone down about 9% since Obeyme took office).

There are three kinds of ‘average’, Mean (arithmetical average), Median (midpoint of the distribution of the population) and Mode (most frequently occurring value).

$50,000 by any reasonable reading would seem to me a halfway mark, the middle, half above, half below.

[Verginius Rufus]

Maybe Rush is using some out-of-date information.

According to the World Almanac 2011, in 2009 the average weekly wage in the US was $942. That makes $48,984 for a 52-week year.

Obviously there are a lot of unemployed and under-employed people, as well as retired people, but for the average wage to be just under $50,000 means that making $50,000 puts you in the top 10% of wage earners.