We got it made in the shade ping.
We got it made in the shade ping.
The top 1% in wealth is believed to start at about $4 million, but no one knows for sure because wealth does not have to be reported except at death.
The top 5% is thought to start at about $2.7 million or so.
But these numbers are both just guesses. Read more here:
I stopped after “Average”.
If this statistic is true, it means that "averages" have become meaningless. A sensible statistician with no prior agenda would look at quartiles and medians.
JMHO
Bill Gates walks into a bar.. The average wealth of the patrons and staff becomes well over a billion $.
Until he walks out.
I stopped when I thought it meant I was going to have to count what I have, because that is so depressing.
Remember that the $422,000 for stocks and bonds is based upon current values. I think most people will be devastated when it finally becomes apparent that most of the publicly traded corporations have been gutted and have little or no value. Creative accounting, stock buybacks with borrowed money, assets marked to fictitious values, etc. will become to the forefront as people try to cash in for retirement.
Lol...I got $650...that’s before taxes. Somebody talk to the CEO of my company. We have to increase our productivity in order for him to afford a 6000 square foot garage for his collectable autos.
You can’t take it with you!
The average household has half a million dollars in stocks or business, bonds, or deposits? What planet is he living on?
Wow... That’s my profile, almost exactly...except with a bit less cash on deposit and NO bonds.
The IRS says I’m in the top 5% of wage earners....but, I don’t even feel close to being “wealthy”. I’m close enough to it to see it occasionally...enough to know that AIN’T me.
The person who put this together is clueless about reading financial statements.
My wife and I are “above average” but we are a mere 20-25 years from retirement. It will take considerable capital by then to expatriate to Singapore or Costa Rica or whatever regime provides asylum to those escaping the closing world once called free.
So, I guess everything's relative, and perception is a lot of it all.
Well written with some excellent points. Measuring all of this is so tough to do, especially now with the growth of the black economy. Just measuring the actual GDP of cottage industries I suspect would significantly add to the overall total. Then again, we count salaries paid to ‘diversity coordinators’ & hyphenated American Studies instructors as though some economic activity, when in fact those endeavors are entirely wasteful, in my opinion.
Oh, and where I am from there is no doubt in my mind real estate comprises the bulk of household wealth.
They’d have to move the decimal five spaces to the left for me.
A good indicator of the net worth you should have is your age x your gross salary. Divided by 10.
So if you are 50 years old and earning $120,000 a year, you should have a net worth of at least $600,000. If you don't, you run the risk of having to lower your standard of living when you retire, or worse, go on some sort of government assistance (outside of Social Security).
Now a lot of people artificially inflate their net worth by including their homes or their automobiles, or they even count silly stuff as assets such as a baseball card collection or antique furniture. Those that do this are only fooling themselves.
Let's take counting your house as part of your net worth. Now most people have a mortgage (including perhaps an equity line) and also have an unrealistic assessment of what their house would be worth.
An example would be somebody calculating a $250,000 net worth on their home because they assess the value of the house at $400,000 and have $150,000 left to pay on their mortgage.
Chances are however, if they decide to sell it, they are going to have to settle for substantially less than what THEY feel their house is worth. Most people have unrealistic opinion of how much their home is worth on the open market. More likely, they will get maybe $357,000 for that house and then they have to pay realtor fees and other closing costs and taxes. So suddenly, they are only coming out of the closing with a $185,000 check instead of the $250,000 they were counting on.
Now they have to find another place to live. And chances are, unless they are moving to an area of the country where home prices are much cheaper, they are going to have to sink that $185,000 right back into another house. They might even find themselves with a bigger mortgage then they had when they started!
Ditto with a car. You can sell your car at a profit, but now you are going to have to use that profit to buy another car. Unless you are going to live in the city and take public transportation everywhere.
So if you want to be honest with yourself, you calculate your net worth without including your home and automobiles. Or your stamp collection that you got from your uncle 20 years ago and has been sitting up in the attic ever since in a box with a pile of old newspapers on top of it (because you thought those newspapers would be worth money someday too.)
Guess what, most collectibles that people think is an investment is just a pile of junk that is virtually worthless. Those Reggie Jackson or Ted Williams rookie cards that supposedly fetch thousands of dollars online, good luck with that. Unless you are a professional curator that has these cards hermetically sealed in a climate controlled room like a museum, you are only going to get pennies on the dollar.
If you thought the fawning over Bill Clintons economy was sickening you ain’t seen nothing yet. When 2016 gets here the media will be in a full court press about the greatness that is Obama.
One of the stories missing from all this income/wealth “inequality” talk is that most wealth is built up in the practice of business ownership. Business ownership comes in the form of the sole proprietorship, LLC, partnership or corporation and their sundry forms.
The stock market allows the average American to be an owner, but the US and state governments make stock ownership expensive and as regards the Social Security retirement fund wholly illegal.
So you can own your own business, but again government makes that very hard. It takes about 32 days to open a business in Chicago and time is money. Toss in local, county and state zoning, permitting and licensing regulation and for most people it’s better and easier to just get on welfare.
So people with little to no assets have a choice. Either they can continue along the incentive path government has created which leads to permanent welfare dependency or they can own a business which government has made nearly impossible for them to do. Some choice.