My point was to refute the myth that "we, software engineers (assuming you're one), are in the 1%" which is patently untrue as a generalization. Five percent of

My point was to refute the myth that "we, software engineers (assuming you're one), are in the 1%" which is patently untrue as a generalization. Five percent of the top 1% of earners in the US is a very small number of people compared to the number of software engineers in the country. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics[1], an income of $149,000 would put you in the top 10% of the software engineering profession. The medium annual wage for software engineers at all levels is around $100k. That's definitely better than many professions, but it doesn't even begin to approach the level of inequality we're talking about when we talk about the 1%. [1]: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm#tab-5 http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/s... EDIT: This doesn't even take into account the fact that other related titles like Computer Programmer (which, despite being a less fashionable job description of late, is often the same as what a "software engineer" would be doing) have significantly lower medians and are broken out separately.