1: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/opinion/the-triumph-of-hop...
At any given time a person is more likely to be a student, in an entry level position, or retired, than be at the height of their career.
39% in the top 1% is still an overestimate, but it's probably not far wrong to say that 39% of people will at some point in their lives be in the top 5%.
The problem is with using "1%" as the threshold, because that just means you and your spouse are successful professionals at the height of your careers, when the real problem is the top <0.001% and, even more than that, the accumulating wealth of large corporations relative to individuals.
1: https://www.investopedia.com/news/how-much-income-puts-you-t...
2: http://equitablegrowth.org/research-analysis/u-s-top-one-per...
Those "one time" activities will all temporarily boost your AGI, meaning people come into and out of the "top 5%" brackets pretty regularly. It won't get you into the top 0.001%, but could easily boost what you think of as a "normal" two-income couple into the top 5% or 1% at some point in their life.
Senior Associate Attorney: $239,270
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-associate-attorney...
Senior Physician: $225,076
https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-physician-salary-S...
This is also not at all out of line with what trade professionals like electricians are making when they start out on their own but by the time they retire have half a dozen people working for them.
What’s most amusing to me are the 19% who think they are currently among the top 1%. That’s just math fail.
So picking 1% as the threshold was very ill-conceived because now it includes many expert professionals and small business owners. So it's very easy to relate to them if you are also an expert or small business owner.
Who is waging this campaign?
I don't think is a campaign to vilify the 1% as much as it's an increased awareness by the 99% that no one needs to be making $800,000 a year. As people see home ownership being increasingly implausible, healthcare difficult to afford, fulfilling work unable to be found and less than $1000 in savings, is it any wonder people are upset, bothered and judgemental of people who make an impossibly larger amount of money than 99% of people?
I'm upset when natural disasters occur, but I don't blame anyone for them. I'm upset when it's too cold outside, but I don't blame anyone for that.
The problem is that, when it comes to the economy, people for some reason think that it's nothing like a force of nature - they (sometimes subconsciously) assume that if one person is rich, that means another person is poor. Or even, that if someone is rich, than that has something to do with whether she "deserves" it. That's close[1] to being as nonsensical as asking if someone "deserved" to die in a hurricane.
[1] I write "close", because this only applies in a good capitalist economy. There are of course ways to cheat, whether by directly stealing money from other people (in which case you'd go to jail in a well functioning society), or by changing the laws to benefit yourself (which is a subversion of the capitalist system, but it can happen. It's not what people are usually complaining about though).
>that no one needs to be making $800,000 a year.
And that's where the mistake is. A significant number of people (including me) are fine with someone creating a company, selling it for a few million, or just having 10 good years of operation and retiring. The rewards for creating something new need to be worth the risk of complete failure and loss of income for those years.
This is the problem with using 1%. The bottom of the 1% is filled with normal professionals that took huge risks (starting businesses) or spent a significant amount of time in training (brain surgeon).
>As people see home ownership being increasingly implausible
Not if you give up on living in the most expensive parts of the US. Even then, a housing shortage is hardly attributable to income inequality. Just look at the bay area where there are people making good money. The housing shortage has caused prices to sky rocket to absorb up all of that difference. If you have 1000 people fighting for 100 houses, 900 people are going to get screwed regardless of income inequality.
> healthcare difficult to afford,
A broken healthcare system can't be fixed by fewer rich people.
>fulfilling work unable to be found and less than $1000 in savings
Capping incomes of successful professions will not add more fulfilling professions nor will it increase their savings.
>Who is waging this campaign?
Well people like you who claim nobody needs to make a lot of money and then blame a bunch of unrelated issues on income inequality. I can't tell if it was just the mathematical ignorance of who started the movement or if it was partially orchestrated by the super-rich. But by making it include skilled professionals that had to put in huge risks to get where they are, they lost significant support of the population within 50% of that income.
>is it any wonder people are upset, bothered and judgemental of people who make an impossibly larger amount of money than 99% of people?
I don't know what "impossibly larger" is supposed to mean in this context. Someone who makes $250k will not see someone who makes $500k as making an "impossibly larger" amount of money than them.
If this whole movement had been more carefully crafted to exclude people that had to go to medical school and go $350k into debt, I don't think there would have been very much disagreement from a significant chunk of the US. As it stands, it just looks like an arbitrary cut-off screwing the people who managed to secure a good life rather than being focused on people with enough money to hire full-time Washington lobbyists.
The link references data from 2014.
> The rewards for creating something new need to be worth the risk of complete failure and loss of income for those years.
New things are not inherently valuable by virtue of being new. I don't feel that we ought to reward people who for merely creating things that are new. And why should anyone be rewarded beyond having a comfortable, easy life? $465,000 is an insane salary, magnitudes larger than is required for a comfortable life.
> Not if you give up on living in the most expensive parts of the US.
You're thinking in a narrow context. For someone like me who moved from the midwest to the west coast, yah, I could just go back "home". The larger issue however is that, to borrow a tired phrase, it takes a village to raise a child. The jobs that make a city work are largely not high-income earning jobs. That is: paramedics, firefighters, teachers, bus drivers, road repairmen, linemen, auto mechanics, delivery drivers, locksmiths, and on and on. Much fewer of these people are transplants than the high-earners and don't have support networks in those cheaper parts of the country. Creating cities where only the wealthy can afford to live necessarily, forcefully pushes other people out.
> Even then, a housing shortage is hardly attributable to income inequality.
While I agree that it's vital to build enough housing for the demand, there is one reason alone that a house can cost $600,000. That is because someone has ~$120,000 in liquid, spendable cash. If everyone had only $1000 of cash, how much could a house possibly cost.
> A broken healthcare system can't be fixed by fewer rich people.
I agree, the healthcare system is broken and the problem isn't for lack of money. But when you see politicians attempting to gut medicare for tax breaks for the rich it doesn't little to instill confidence that that money could be better spent.
> Capping incomes of successful professions will not add more fulfilling professions nor will it increase their savings.
I agree.
> But by making it include skilled professionals that had to put in huge risks to get where they are
"Huge Risks"? If you have stories about skilled professionals who risked their security and failed I'd love to hear them.
> I don't know what "impossibly larger" is supposed to mean in this context. Someone who makes $250k will not see someone who makes $500k as making an "impossibly larger" amount of money than them.
Sure, but someone who makes $45,000 is likely to see $100,000 as impossibly larger. Referencing the professions I listed above, can those skilled professional expect to make $250,000 a year in their profession?
> If this whole movement had been more carefully crafted to exclude people that had to go to medical school and go $350k into debt
While I only know a handful of people who have gone to medical school or law school, the path to repaying those loans seems to be pretty straightforward and perhaps a little nerve-racking at times, but I don't know anyone who's gone destitute as a result of those loans. Also, I'm critical of a system that puts the burden of risk on the individual for training individuals to do those important, necessary jobs.
Their risk-taking isn't what we ought to be rewarding, it's the value that those professions bring to the general population.
These problems are all intersectional. Is it the fault of rich people that there are poor people? Often not, in some cases yes. There have long been abuses of the lower economic classes by the higher economic classes. I think one the largest problems is how quickly wealthy people lose solidarity with lower earners and believe that it's their "hard work" that got them their wealth. People stuck in lower incomes know how ignorant that belief is. It's also exceedingly difficult for a person living paycheck to paycheck, raising a family or caring for dependent parent or whatever, to solidarity with someone who was in a position to go to med school or study law. Anger is often misplaced and I agree that the delineation between the %1 and the %99 percent is often fuzzed, but that doesn't make the anger an less real, any less meaningful.
I suppose you will be heading up the committee to decide the value of what people do for the community.?
If only there were some automatic way where the markets could decide what is valuable and what is not.
Then reference correct newer data.
>New things are not inherently valuable by virtue of being new.
If people don't think they are getting value out of a business's product, people will not pay for it and the owner won't be rewarded. Markets 101.
>And why should anyone be rewarded beyond having a comfortable, easy life?
Tall poppy syndrome. Why shouldn't we strive for people to have paths to easy lives? Attacking the 1% just strikes down people who have done well without improving everyone else.
>$465,000 is an insane salary, magnitudes larger than is required for a comfortable life.
You assume it's sustainable for life. These people are not clock punchers working for some government with no budget limits. If you run a business it could lose money for a year and your salary could easily be < $0 if you are keeping it alive. If you are a highly compensated professional and lose your job due to industry collapse or even just industry, you might not find a job for years. Have you ever even considered that or do you assume salaries just flow the same every year?
How about the fact that a medical student has to throw away ~12 years of earning potential and accrue debt with interest?
These are all massive risks that these professionals take and that's the reason they are compensated the way they are. If it was so easy there would be a big supply of them and they wouldn't be so well compensated by buyers. Markets 101.
>Creating cities where only the wealthy can afford to live necessarily, forcefully pushes other people out.
But you are part of the problem by choosing to live there and competing for the shortage of housing (either via rent or purchase). The Midwest isn't having those problems and it isn't due to a lack of rich people. There just isn't such a strong NIMBY culture there that prevents housing being built and there isn't a giant influx of millennials moving into them as if they are the last place on earth.
>While I agree that it's vital to build enough housing for the demand, there is one reason alone that a house can cost $600,000. That is because someone has ~$120,000 in liquid, spendable cash. If everyone had only $1000 of cash, how much could a house possibly cost.
This is absolutely false. People can get loans with much less than 20% down and they can go in with family members/friends on a mortgage. If everyone only had $1000 cash and there was a housing shortage, the house would go to whoever was the most desperate by taking out the largest loan (with a group if necessary). Housing costs would continue to squeeze the life out of the community because there just aren't enough houses and people are competing for them (see the pigeonhole principle).
>If you have stories about skilled professionals who risked their security and failed I'd love to hear them.
Have some imagination. Every single medical student for one. They can finish medical school/residency with life crushing student debt, screw up, and nearly immediately have their license revoked. Or they can just fail school right at the end. Not only did they throw away their 20s, they now have significant student loan debt that is extremely difficult to discharge in bankruptcy.
If you don't think small business owners put in any risk, I suggest you try to get a small business loan from a bank without putting a bunch of your own savings in as collateral. 99%+ of small businesses don't get showered with VC money, they have to go the loan route because they aren't "changing the world".
>Sure, but someone who makes $45,000 is likely to see $100,000 as impossibly larger.
Nope, this comes up in professions like truck driving, mechanics, etc all the time. The difference between those two is usually just deciding offer your services as a contractor with the risks involved rather than working for a big company directly. A plumber running his/her own business making $100k isn't news, neither is a plumber working for roto rooter making $45k.
>Referencing the professions I listed above, can those skilled professional expect to make $250,000 a year in their profession?
Yes, by starting their own businesses in their professions. Of course not all of them will be that successful and that's the risk I refer to. However, a small plumbing business (~10 full-time journeyman plumbers on staff) can easily bring in way more than that to leave enough for the owner to get $250k.
>Their risk-taking isn't what we ought to be rewarding, it's the value that those professions bring to the general population.
We aren't rewarding pure risk-taking. People that take risks without providing some kind of value won't have customers and won't be rewarded. People get rewarded for identifying something they can provide at a cost lower than the market will pay for it.
>People stuck in lower incomes know how ignorant that belief is.
That's also just propaganda. There is luck involved, sure; but there is a significant amount of aptitude and perseverance required to climb the income ladders and maintain a steady income. If you convince yourself early on that it's only luck, then you just destroyed your future.
> but that doesn't make the anger an less real, any less meaningful.
When you ask protesters if they are upset with college professors (a married couple of Stanford professors will clear $600k), brain surgeons, the dude that owns 3 local in-n-outs, etc. they will almost always say no. But they are clearly right in the 1%. That's why myself and others can't get behind outrage towards the 1%. It's misguided and destructive class warfare against the wrong class. Focusing on the other issues causing outrage is a much better use of time.
https://ballotpedia.org/School_board_elections,_2016 https://ballotpedia.org/Money_in_local_elections_(2016)
You may disagree, but many people do have priciples that include private property rights, limited government, and flatter tax schemes.
Btw, I don't see being "selfish" as a bad thing or value judgement. It's kind of what we do as humans.
There are only three classes of people who oppose it: 1) people who oppose all redistributive programs, 2) people who favor the centrally planned farce of the existing welfare system because it allows them to covertly insert corrupt industry-specific subsidies into the system, and 3) people who don't actually understand how it works.
If the 1% favor it they must like income redistribution, dislike opportunities for political corruption, or not understand what they're asking for.
I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet.
The main price increase in the bay area has been housing -- rent is still housing -- and the reason for that isn't primarily incomes. It's artificial scarcity (from zoning) in the face of increasing population. In a normal market without the artificial restrictions, the fact that people are willing to pay a million dollars for housing would cause lots of new housing to be constructed which would bring the price down.
Incomes contribute, because if housing cost that much and people weren't making that much money then they would move out of the area (which would lower demand), but those prices would never be sustainable without the restrictions on new construction.
But more importantly, this is all about relativity. If Bob has twenty dollars, Alice has ten and Charlie has one, and you print three more dollars and give each person one, now there is going to be ~10% inflation because $31 used to exist and now $34 exists. But now Charlie has $2 which are worth as much as $1.82 used to be, which is less than $2, but he's still up $0.82.
And on top of that, a UBI doesn't actually create new money. Everyone gets a dollar, but it's because Alice paid $1 in taxes and then got it back and Bob paid $2 in taxes $1 of which went to Charlie. There is no new money to cause inflation, it's just redistribution.
In theory there could be relative demand shifts, if Charlie likes to buy different stuff than Bob would have, but unless that stuff is in limited supply, people will just make more of it. And if it is in limited supply, it still works as redistribution because it just means we're back to relativity -- even if things did cost more, it still increases the proportion of things that Charlie gets.
> I don't understand why people are pushing for redistribution of income rather than redistribution of goods like we pretty much did with utilities, public transport and, to a certain degree, internet.
I don't understand what "redistribution of goods" means. More free public infrastructure? There are good reasons to do that for natural monopolies like roads and utilities, but that's a completely different thing, and we can do both at the same time.
A basic income even eliminates the need to have a minimum wage, which allows people whose labor is not worth a living wage to nonetheless trade it for whatever they can get and still not starve.
A basic job is economically damaging because by definition the value derived from the work is less than the compensation (or it would just be a regular job). Which creates all kinds of terrible incentives where, basically, people choose the basic job over more actually productive work because it's government-subsidized and the real job isn't.
Working as a teacher and having a second job to subsidise the first is considered purposeful. Working as a teacher and receiving the rest of the income as UBI is suddenly no longer purposeful?
The pro UBI argument is:
UBI removes the incentive for people to work at jobs they hate. It gives them negotiation power. If people are looking for purpose in their work then arguably not being restricted by financial considerations is allowing them to find purpose and be more happy. People get to decide what purpose means to them. I believe this is what women are doing in exchange for lower pay.
The anti UBI argument is:
Someone must force their own definition of purpose on them and if they weren't forced to work bad jobs they wouldn't have any purpose at all. They need someone that "thinks" for them because they are unable to "think" for themselves.
It's not a zero sum game. Just because the 1% benefit from a particular policy, it doesn't mean other non-1% people supporting it don't benefit as well.
What was labelled the "death tax", which somehow became a grassroots issue, was taxes on inheritance over roughly 5 million. It's now doubled to 11 million with the new tax bill. This is not in the interest of well over 99% of people.
If I benefit from something, it doesn't bother me at all that someone benefits even more. Should I forfeit my benefits out of spite?
> What was labelled the "death tax", which somehow became a grassroots issue, was taxes on inheritance over roughly 5 million. It's now doubled to 11 million with the new tax bill. This is not in the interest of well over 99% of people.
Maybe people feel it's fair to get to pass your wealth onto your children and that if they were rich they would support this idea. There's something to be said about sticking to your moral values and not being a hypocrite especially when what is being debated is having the state take a private citizen's money away from them.
I make a pretty high wage compared to a cashier at a store, but my interests align with them a lot more than a Walton. Yet my peers are convinced that because they have the trappings of the petite bourgeoisie and a well funded 401k that they have more in common with a Koch.
I'm not familiar with a society that experienced such high inequality and did not have very disruptive upheaval afterwards. One would think the wealthy would advocate for universal health care, education and safety nets as a small price to pay for their own self preservation. On the other hand, they haven't had much to fear from the lower classes for a long time now.