There's a specific table that breaks it down clearly: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/...
40% of Americans spend at least 2 years in the top 10%. That's not just selling grandpa's dairy farm and paying off creditors.
A full 62% spend at least 2 years in the top 20%, and over 54% spend at least 3 years there.
And it may very well be that the sale of grandpa's fairy farm spans over two fiscal years.
Secondly, these numbers are based on tax filings, and even though the process of the sale of grandpa’s dairy farm may straddle 2 years, the income from the sale isn’t realized across 2 years; it will always register as a single fiscal year, I.e. the year in which the transaction closed. The actual income is not realized until then.
Further, it’s not at all obvious that only considering consecutive years is necessary to invalidate the original GGP claim. The fact that 40% spent 2 not-necessarily-consecutive years in the top 10% (and 62% for the same in the top 20%) especially debunks the notion that one-time inheritance sales make up the variance. Nobody is selling grandpas dairy farm across 2 disjoint years. It also shows us that people do in fact move in and out of these quintiles (or deciles) as one would expect in a dynamic economy, and that those groups aren’t just a static cabal of people twirling their mustaches.
The crux of the argument stands: the majority of Americans experience affluence by spending at least 2 years in the top 10-20%. And at the very least it totally invalidates the absurd claim made (quite confidently, at that) in the GGP comment:
> Most American never get anywhere close to the top 10% - not even remotely - regardless of age. The idea that everyone is just waiting around for their career to advance enough to put them in the upper-middle class is ludicrous on its face.
It’s just outright misinformation.
It's about $800,000 in net worth: https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentile-calculator-united-sta...
This is largely attainable for the majority of Americans when you factor in the value of one's home, retirement accounts, and general lifetime savings. Keep in mind we're not talking about how much net worth the majority of Americans have at any snapshot-in-time, we're talking about the maximum net worth attainable in one's lifetime, and what that looks like for the majority of Americans.
There's absolutely no evidence that the top 10% wealth holders has been a static group of people over the last 60 years.
https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/07/news/economy/top-1/index.ht...
If, "by a large number," you mean 10%, then you're right.
Edit: Upon reflection, my comment was both flip and inaccurate. In sum, I was talking out of my ass. Phew! That stinks. My bad.
More than 10% of the population will be in the top 10% of almost any category at some point during their lifespan, even if it's briefly.
As noted, even just selling a house in a random state like Wisconsin can easily put you in that bucket.
Top 10% by wealth is a different story harder to attain. It's frustrating that we pay for things with taxes on income and not wealth, because it hits the upper-middle-class harder than it hits the people with all of the equity.
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/evidence-shows-significant-in...