Poll taken during 2000 election: 19% of Americans said they were in the top 1% of earners

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july272009/american_money_dj_7-27-09.php

Jul-27-2009

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Americans believe, as part of their cultural mythology, that potentially anyone can get rich. Wealth really comes from three basic sources: You can win it, inherit it or be born in the right place at the right time.

None of these things are in your sphere of control, and if you know you are not in line to receive any inheritance, to believe that one of the other two will strike you, is self-delusional.

A study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, found that only 2.7% of Americans receive $50,000 or more in inheritance; 91.9% receive nothing. Thus, the attempt by some conservatives to eliminate inheritance taxes—which, for PR, they always call "death taxes"—would take a huge bite out of government revenues for the benefit of less than 1% of the population. So, forget inheritance as a way to get rich.

People vote their aspirations, not their reality. In a poll during the 2000 election, people were asked if they were in the top 1 percent of earners. Nineteen percent of Americans said they were in the top 1 percent and another 20 percent expect to be someday. So immediately there is more than a third of Americans who don’t oppose tax cuts for the wealthy because they think it somehow does now, or will one day, apply to them.

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39% of Americans thought they either were now or were going to some day be in the top 1% of earners.

Boy, I sure hope people have gotten smarter since 2000.



Don

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended, you're on a roll today.

Thanks for the thread, Don.

[MrSlayer]

2. It's probably higher now.

Something like 40% of teabaggers said they were in the top 1% at one of their rallies.

[flamingdem]

3. This is partially why Republican messaging works

Americans are deluded.

Are they putting stupid sauce in the water or what?

[Starry Messenger]

4. This seems to be an ongoing problem:

[NNN0LHI]

9. I sure don't see any way to address this issue with a slogan or a bumper sticker Starry Messenger

Which kind of indicates we automatically lose over a third of the electorate soon as we open our mouth about raising taxes.

That is troubling.

Don

[KamaAina]

5. The poll must have been taken in Lake Wobegon

where all the children are above average.

[bbinacan]

6. Here's a calculator

that shows what percent by income.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/10/19/what-percent-are-you/

[kestrel91316]

11. Income of $800,000 appears to be the 1% line. Nope, not me!!

[Scootaloo]

7. The really boggling thing is this...

Even if it were true, and social mobility was that mobile... the fact is this... wealth does not work that way!. Seriously, 39% of people cannot be in the 1% of top earners. That's not politics, that's not socialism ,that's just motherfucking math.

Even if that many people could advance to that level of income... there's just not that much wealth to go around. Honest-and-for-true, you can't honestly believe "everyone will be wealthy," unless you have no actual idea of what "wealth" even is!

I can't blame Republicans for this. It's too glib. They take advantage of it for certain, but there's some other, deeper, more dundamental problem here.

[mathematic]

15. It's plenty mathematically possible.

The "1% of top earners" can encompass any portion from 1-100% of the population. It's all a matter of the duration spent at the 1% level.

Here's how a scenario that gives 39% of the working population a top 1% rating at some time in their life:

-Everybody earns money for 39 years.
-Nobody can earn in the top 1% for more than one year (like say their last year before retirement).
>So 39 years, 39 different 1%s = 39%.

While the above scenario is unrealistic, it captures an important point. The top 1% changes due to usual lifecycle characteristics and the size of the population that has been in the top 1% is larger than 1%. So don't fret for the math skills of the country just yet.

There are other explanations besides delusional brainwashing that make the 19% that say they're in the top 1% not entirely unplausible. People know that the top 1% is a lot but they might not know what the actual cutoff is. It changes from year to year and I think it's about 300k. If you make 200k you might think that's enough to put you in that 1% but it's only good to make the top 5%. If you start considering spouses, household income, and other confusing ways people might accurately consider themselves to be in the top 1% of income without actually earning in the top 1% you can see how the number can be substantially higher than 1%.

In writing my reply, I'm suddenly interested in the following questions:
How many years do people with 1% incomes at some point in their life earn in the top 1%?
What is the the year to year variability of individual income (say, for jobs that are high paying with a lot of variance like high end sales, finance, or specialty consulting, and including investment returns)?

Answering those might explain why it seems like far more people than expected identify with the rich and support R economic policies and it could be the "more fundamental" characteristic you're searching for.

[Scootaloo]

21. Well, if anyone was going to give me a math lesson...

I'm happy it was someone named "mathematic"

[JDPriestly]

26. Americans confuse wealth with contentment, which I think is actually quite wonderful.

Most Americans are quite content with a fairly modest but reliable income.

That's why it is so utterly shameful that the 1% are such a greedy, miserable lot.

Most of us get by and are happy on a tiny portion of what the greedy 1% grabs.

Meanwhile, here in Los Angeles, the city fathers find excuses to fence of areas where homeless people set up their communities. What can we say? It isn't good to have people living outside, but who really wants to have to stay in a crowded, ugly shelter?

And since it is relatively warm here year-round, we have so many homeless people in LA. How can a person earning over $500,000 per year look in the mirror when there are so many homeless people living near him/her?

[quaker bill]

27. People just don't know how much it takes

The number of people who ever, even once in their lifetime, earn something north of 500K is quite small. The permeability of the boundary around the 1% is really quite low. Those who get there tend to stay for a long time and those who never do, actually never come all that close.

By using the calculator, I note that I have slipped several percent lower since the bubble burst. I am still employed and quite well paid which is great, but the lack of raises for 6 years running has taken a toll on my standing. However, short of winning the lottery, I am never approaching the 1%.

[mathematic]

28. What do you base your answers on?

Because after sleeping on it, I'm more convinced that the number of people that have earned in the top 1% is much larger than 1%.

The 1% cutoff for all tax returns was about 350k in '09. Since this is tax returns, it will include high earning, but individually not 1%, couples that earn the 1% combined. Major sources of variability include bonuses and investment income.

There are lots of top 5% type jobs that will put you in shooting distance of the top 1% in good years. For example, small business owners, high end sales, professors that write books, and, of course, any number of finance jobs (they're heavily bonus based). There are many types of jobs that are flash-in-the-pan either due to the nature of the job or due to the economy like professional athletes, successful artists, entertainers, real estate brokers, and dot-com "millionaires". There are plenty of jobs that provide a steady and constant high income that allows large lifetime savings and therefore high investment income as time goes on (and so they can break into the top 1% with this additional income). For example, doctors, lawyers, management, and maybe even blue collar jobs like police officers or a skilled tradesworkers.

I want to estimate based on the numbers and characteristics of earnings that 10% of the population has been in the top 1% income at some time in their life (including spouses and combined incomes). It's higher than my direct experience but since I'm relatively young most of the people I know are near the beginning or early middle of their careers and also don't have the lifetime earnings yet to generate significant investment income.

[exboyfil]

8. I had a coworker go on as to how people think

he is rich when he is not. I pointed out that to the 97% of the country with income below his (family income between $250-$300K) thought he was rich. He was shocked that he was in the 3% and did not believe me until I pulled up census data to show him.

So I think it goes both ways. I am actually surprised by the poll numbers and I don't believe them. The primary reason that relatively high earners (think $80K plus) are against taxes is that at the end of the day they figure they will be paying more.

[jade3000]

10. These statistics speak volumes

The point about inheritance is also a strong one.

[TheKentuckian]

19. The inheritance stats surprised me too. I don't get how this one gets traction on the other side

except for delusion. Over 90% of us get nothing and many folks have their mind blown at the prospect of millions being taxed.

Optimism turns into willful stupidity at some point. Lots of Americans live way over that line.

Preemptive avarice is another form of the stupid and seems to be cutting edge dangerous in any exercise that depends on people seeing reality. If 39% believe they are or will be in the top 1% many other fools believe they are in or about to be way up there. There is probably an inverse effect too, with like 5-10% believing they are in the bottom 50% with some chunk of them being much better off.

"Middle class" has been drummed so much that probably everyone thinks they are there at worst and according to some definitions they are since by those counts that is every soul a penny above the way low poverty line all the way up to at least a quarter million a year.

Meanwhile, our social mobility is churning toward feudal levels. Depending on these levels of stupid to work themselves out is about as nuts.

[rgbecker]

12. When I started little league, I thought I'd easily hit 300.

I mean 3 out of 10...how hard is that?

[Skinner]

13. Well, that kinda explains a lot.

Maybe we should run commercials telling people how much the top 1% earn in a year.

[BeyondGeography]

14. More proof, as if we needed it, that too many Americans have their feet firmly planted in the air

The joke is on them, and, unfortunately, anyone who tries to tell them otherwise.

What a goofy country.

[BootinUp]

16. People have not gotten smarter

The only hope in my view, is if more of the media elite are convinced that Romney would destroy the recovery instead of helping it and then cover the election more accurately (stop repeating Romney lies unchecked).

[JI7]

17. i remember this and it told me more about elections than any polls on specific candidates

and races.

[Marr]

18. Where do you suppose that 19% actually starts?

If I had to take a guess, I'd say it's people making $95,000 or so in a big city, and people making about $65,000 in rural areas.

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. I don't know. Consistently, year after year about 90% of Americans identify themselves as

middle class. Obviously, few have any real idea of where they are on the scale, let alone have any clue at all of just how much the actual rich have.
K&R

[ThoughtCriminal]

22. Not hard to explain

1. It was 2000. Before the Village Idiot took over, things were looking pretty good.

2. People brag about themselves - even for anonymous polls. They exaggerate their income, how often they go to church, how much they volunteer and donate to charity, how much they drink, what they eat, how large their penis is, etc.

3. People believe in affirmations. They think that if they say they will become rich, they will.

[eppur_se_muova]

23. "For driving skill, 93% of the US sample ... put themselves in the top 50%"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

[sabrina 1]

24. Well, they were better off than they are now.

Not sure they were in the top 1% though.

[GObamaGO]

25. That is a crazy number of people suffering from such grand delusions.