While it's always important to keep this in mind at the global scale, most Americans use "1%" colloquially to describe the top 1% of United States citizens.

I suspect the downvotes are from people who assume you are intentionally misunderstanding the parent

No sure I get it. It seems people don't like being reminded that whilst they're very keen for people richer than them to share their wealth, they're generally very reticent to share their own wealth with people poorer than they are.

I just thought your comment was off-topic, is all. The comment you replied to, and all of the comments before it, were referring to the American 1%er, not the global 1%.

However, I like to think of a downvote is paperwork, not an insult. It's a great point, I just think the conversation flows better without it.

This accounts for why socialists change their minds after making money.

That's interesting. I was referring to 1% w.r.t. the USA, where the cutoff is actually ~250 k after taxes and adding back transfers. http://www.economist.com/node/21543178

Really brings to light how bad global inequality really is!

So through a US lens, I'm guessing a certain percentage of HN readers who work in senior positions in the valley or NYC would be 1%, and of course a random assortment of other readers, but the vast majority of software engineers etc. would NOT be 1% on a single income.