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1% is a colloquial way of saying "those who own capital for a living, instead of working for a living". The high income of athletes and highly trained professio
by Weebs 6y ago
1% is a colloquial way of saying "those who own capital for a living, instead of working for a living". The high income of athletes and highly trained professionals has little to do with our situation. However, most capital and expenditure is controlled by a small group of people that have asymmetric power in employment agreements and political process, and that is concerning
- DominikPeters 6y agoThe working paper that the article is about does not mean what you say 1% means.
- Weebs 6y agoI'm having trouble parsing what you wrote, but I assume you mean that the paper specifically looked at top 1% as defined by earnings or net worth? My point is that while we frequently use the 1% as a reference for discussions on inequality, the driving force of wealth accumulation isn't that some people make 350k+, and people understandably get caught up in those semantics.
- refurb 6y agoTop of 1% of income for a household was $421k in 2018. So $210k if a two person household with each working. There are plenty of Silicon Valley low level engineers who are in the top 1%. Doctors and top lawyers are in the top 1%. I would fathom most in the top 1% are wage earners and not owning so much capital they can live off of it.
- ska 6y ago> Doctors and top lawyers are in the top 1%. According to BLS, median physician salary doesn't quite make your list, at 208k. Median lawyer is more like 120k. And you are assuming there are two such wage earners per family here, which is probably the minority case. I know a few two doctor couples, by I know far more where the other career either doesn't exist or is much less lucrative. Any way you cut it, top 1% of income, let alone wealth, doesn't look anything like a typical job and it doesn't do anyone (other than the very wealthy) favors to pretend otherwise.
- refurb 6y agoI'm not arguing all doctors and lawyers are in the top 1%, just a significant percentage of them. Your average specialist salary will get you very close to that threshold and being a specialist is not exactly a "capital owner who doesn't have to work". To say that all top 1% are "capital owners who don't need to work" isn't accurate. There are plenty of wage earners in the top 1%.
- ska 6y agoThe whole point of medians is that half of them are below that. So half of physicians don’t get there even if they double up (2 physician incomes per family) I’m certainly not arguing that all of the 1% are living off capital only, but it’s worth noting that the people in there that primarily do it off a wage are unusual even amongst high wage earners. Absolutely the top 0.01% is different than the top 1%. But that doesn’t make the top 1% just folks.
- refurb 6y agoThere you go, someone did the analysis. For top 1%, salary makes up the same fraction of income as capital gains. ” This fraction declines and for the top 1 percent (those making $783,000 or more), their income is about equally split between capital and labor income.” I’d bet if you looked at those in the top 1% but under $1M range the vast majority of income is salary. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/let-me-tell-you-about-very-rich-they-are-different-you-and-me https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/let-me-tell-you-about...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ska 6y agoThat seems consistent with my point.