Quote:
Originally Posted by NemesisX
Yeah I've seen figures that range from 25% to 50%, but I've become somewhat disillusioned with aggregate wealth statistics. I've spent a lot of time trying to find well-defined, reliable statistics on wealth in America and I've come up with numbers all over the place.
Income thresholds are usually very well defined. The following table describes thresholds to be in the top 10%/5%/etc. of U.S. income earners with or without realized capital gains in 2009 -
That's data directly from the IRS. I think it's fascinating how the percentage of income received through realized capital gains skyrockets once you go from the top .1% to the top .01%.
But, it's incredibly difficult to find similar thresholds (note: not averages) for net worth. One table suggests that the average net worth of the top 1% peaked at $19.2 million in 2007, but that figure is greatly influenced by outliers in the top .01%. The federal reserve has data that suggests that the threshold to enter the top 5% of net worth in the U.S. is a shade over $1.56M which sounds pretty reasonable, but they don't have data beyond that, and that figure is derived from the observation that the "median" net worth of the top 10% is $1.56M (read more here) |
So if you make $155K a year, you're top 5%? That's scary since $155K doesn't seem like that much anymore...