Membership in the first club is more or less permanent, while the second club has a revolving door. A bunch of members of the high-income club - employees of a high-tech startup, hedge fund managers, movie producers, inventors, lottery winners, wrongfully imprisoned individuals, victims of malfeasance or drug side effects - get one large paycheck once in their life, representing sometimes decades of work at below-market rates.

They won't have another Powerball jackpot, court settlement or a startup IPO next year.