It really gets strange at the top. Think of an engineer who has been working at a FAANG company for the last 10 years. They have a salary of $200,000. They're v

It really gets strange at the top. Think of an engineer who has been working at a FAANG company for the last 10 years. They have a salary of $200,000. They're vested and get stock bonuses every year. They now have $1,000,000 worth of stock and they sell $500,000 to put a downpayment on a home in California. They're income for the year is now $700,000 putting them just about in the top 1% of income earners for the year[0]. But they're in there with Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos, et al. Jeff Bezos is worth something like $140B or more, whereas the engineer is worth ~1.4M. (Probably less because they only own a portion of their house, but it makes the math easy.) Mr. Bezos is worth 10,000x what the engineer is worth. But a middle income person nearing retirement in the Midwest might outright own their house, which is worth $140,000. If they sell that house, that midwesterner is just in the top 10% of income earners (assuming their salary is modest). The engineer only has a yearly income 5x more than that person and their net worth is only 10x the midwesterner's. It's a really big difference in that last percentile! [0] https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-income-puts-you-top-1-5-10/ https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/how-much-incom...