Earned income excludes purely passive investment like capital gains. By defining it that way, you can attack "top earners" like doctors, lawyers, and SWEs with

Earned income excludes purely passive investment like capital gains. By defining it that way, you can attack "top earners" like doctors, lawyers, and SWEs without attacking the people who really own the country. Conferences are a bad sample because they really are vacations. But it's not representative of how a professional works. My buddy is a neurologist who works 70 hours a week at a hospital. 2 times a year he goes on one of those boondoggles, but the other 50 weeks a year he's spending a lot of time in the ICU. It's hard to lump high earners into one bucket. There are salesmen and some executives who probably work 30 hours a week at worst. And there are lawyers and IBankers who work 60 on a good week.