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Are you a 1%er?

Londo_Jowo

Londo_Jowo

Lifer
According to this article if you make more than $34k after taxes per person in your household you are in the 1% in the world economy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...obal-elite--half-worlds-richest-live-U-S.html

Nearly half of the world's richest one per cent of people live in the U.S., according to a top economist.

But the threshold required to make it in to that elite group is lower than you might think - just $34,000 per person.
Click to expand...

article-2082385-0F5717F500000578-990_468x560.jpg
 
Move a few decimal points over (.001%), throw out an article like this and now the new bad guy are the low income/middle class!

Rich people; many steps ahead of your plebeian ass, in quite a few ways.
 
I picture a global economy making corrections to this figure, in part by lowering the income of this 1% above $34k.
 
Upon looking into it, this is definitely not PPP money, so in many ways the comparison is kind of pointless. For those who don't know, PPP stands for purchasing power parity, which is basically a cost of living adjustment for the world. Making more money by itself doesn't matter if that extra money doesn't buy you anything more.
 
Well, this does explain why the Indians that occasionally pop into General Hardware for computer builds have such low budgets. A recent one wanted a gaming computer for the equivalent of $350.

I'm sure PPP works for local stuff like food and housing; not so much for consumer electronics.
 
Ken g6 said:
Well, this does explain why the Indians that occasionally pop into General Hardware for computer builds have such low budgets. A recent one wanted a gaming computer for the equivalent of $350.

I'm sure PPP works for local stuff like food and housing; not so much for consumer electronics.
Click to expand...

That's a very valid point: PPP means much less when you're talking about goods that are traded internationally like consumer electronics. The average person spends most of their money on food, housing, etc, however, which is all local.

It's not that PPP is perfect, but saying that Americans are in the 1% globally is a figure that needs a LOT of context in order to be informative.
 
Keeper said:
LOL Try living in the NE....

WOWZA. But we (USA) are skewed that way salary wise. Sad. But true.
15 large and you are top 10% globally. WOW.
Click to expand...

Again though, that doesn't mean you have a top 10% standard of living. Focusing on income without adjusting for any standard of living leads to insanely misleading comparisons.
 
eskimospy said:
That's a very valid point: PPP means much less when you're talking about goods that are traded internationally like consumer electronics. The average person spends most of their money on food, housing, etc, however, which is all local.
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correct.
E.g. europeans get shafted when it comes to clothes, and often computer hardware too (not switzerland but it's an exception).
Americans have access to international goods such as clothes and pc hardware for cheap.
Eastern europeans are even worse off, the price for international goods are more or less the same in all of europe if you remove taxes from the equation, but their wages are like half or a third. So they may be much richer than an african but when it comes to certain stuff, they aren't THAT richer.
 
That's $34k PER PERSON IN THE HOUSEHOLD AFTER TAXES.

So the title of the graphic should be "World's Richest Per-Person Households" and the icon used should be a little house (= 1 million households), not a little person. Very misleading.

For a family of 4:

4x34k = $136k

To be left with $136k AFTER TAXES (assuming married, filing jointly):

(I - .25I) + $8142.50 = $136k

Or I = 170,476.67 of taxable income.

And considering that this family would have 4x$3900 of exemptions + (say) $35,000 of deductions (state income tax of $10,000 + $20,000 home mortgage interest + $5000 of property tax on a $500,000 home), this top 1% family has an Adjusted Gross Income of about $221,000.

So the fact that this family is top 1% worldwide is not all that surprising.
 
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I remember when Trivial Pursuit was just a fun family game. Not a twisting of Stats for purely Ideological purposes.
 
shira said:
That's $34k PER PERSON IN THE HOUSEHOLD AFTER TAXES.

So the title of the graphic should be "World's Richest Per-Person Households" and the icon used should be a little house (= 1 million households), not a little person. Very misleading.

For a family of 4:

4x34k = $136k

To be left with $136k AFTER TAXES (assuming married, filing jointly):

(I - .25I) + $8142.50 = $136k

Or I = 170,476.67 of taxable income.

And considering that this family would have 4x$3900 of exemptions + (say) $35,000 of deductions (state income tax of $10,000 + $20,000 home mortgage interest + $5000 of property tax on a $500,000 home), this top 1% family has an Adjusted Gross Income of about $221,000.

So the fact that this family is top 1% worldwide is not all that surprising.
Click to expand...

Indeed. The average US household though is 2.55

2.55 * 34k = 86700 after tax.

That is actually ~ the top 20% of households in the USA pre-tax.

To see where you rank :

Household-income-and-rank.png
 
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