2000 Poll: Nineteen percent of Americans said they were in the top 1 percent of wage earners

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/july272009/american_money_dj_7-27-09.php

Jul-27-2009

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Americans believe, as part of their cultural mythology, that potentially anyone can get rich. Wealth really comes from three basic sources: You can win it, inherit it or be born in the right place at the right time.

None of these things are in your sphere of control, and if you know you are not in line to receive any inheritance, to believe that one of the other two will strike you, is self-delusional.

A study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, found that only 2.7% of Americans receive $50,000 or more in inheritance; 91.9% receive nothing. Thus, the attempt by some conservatives to eliminate inheritance taxes—which, for PR, they always call "death taxes"—would take a huge bite out of government revenues for the benefit of less than 1% of the population. So, forget inheritance as a way to get rich.

People vote their aspirations, not their reality. In a poll during the 2000 election, people were asked if they were in the top 1 percent of earners. Nineteen percent of Americans said they were in the top 1 percent and another 20 percent expect to be someday. So immediately there is more than a third of Americans who don’t oppose tax cuts for the wealthy because they think it somehow does now, or will one day, apply to them.

Here are the real numbers. About 10% of families have incomes greater than $150,000. Three quarters are below $75,000. The largest concentration grouping is just over half with incomes between $30,000 and $75,000.

[YOY]

1. Wow...that's Amazing.

We have some seriously stupid fucking people here and/or the question was worded oddly.

[provis99]

2. they're just like those Confederates in the Civil War

most Confederate soldiers didn't own slaves, but they fought for slavery because "one day" they might own slaves. America: the birthplace of ignorant false hope.

[Ian David]

7. If The South had "won," their population would have been so diminished...

... the slaves would have been able to rise-up on their own and take over.

[stopbush]

3. This info has been out there for years, but people love the American myth.

The other thing to take into account is location. Most people who make over $150,000 per year live in high-rent districts where jobs pay more. However, their buying power in those areas can actually be LESS than a person making $75,000 who lives in a low-rent district.

[Libertas1776]

4. The problem is

that most young Americans don't seek out as a goal, to have a stable,middle class, comfortable lifestyle, anymore. Everything is "I am gonna be filthy rich one day" hence they don't want to tax the filthy rich since...you know...there gonna be one any day now. In the process, nobody fights for things like a living wage, better social security, health care, etc. Instead, they hold on to the bull crap belief that they will literally be shitting gold if they just wait it out. Meanwhile, as my grandmother liked to say, they like to "shit high," buying houses they can't afford, driving around in cars they can't afford, wearing clothes they can't afford etc etc and so on, hoping that keeping up the rich lifestyle appearances will lead to the real thing. Only, it doesn't and they end up flat broke, and have no welfare, no social security, no state funded health care to turn to, since all that is just for dirt poor people and not them...except now they're dirt poor and need it. Oh well.
They will continue to hold on to these fool hearty beliefs in a death grip until they are literally facing death pushing 100, they will still mumble despite senility that "they're gonna be filthy rich one day, you'll see."

[Ian David]

5. 85% of men said their penises were above-average, too. n/t

[stopbush]

10. Yep. For years, I've wanted to have an 8" penis.

Finally, my wife told me to fold it in half. It worked!

[teranchala]

14. And now you can't tell whether you're coming or going!

:rofl:

[vincna]

18. Perfect!

If you didn't pos it, I would have.

[TexasObserver]

6. Recommend

[GodlyDemocrat]

8. Many people felt rich in 2000, because they were rich in 2000 (booming Clinton economy)

The average income for the 20th percentile was almost $20,000, a figure not reached since in real dollars.

Incomes for the poor was growing, as a percentage, faster than the rich for the first time since the 1960s.

People felt that anybody could get rich in 2000, because anybody could get rich in 2000.

Though there may be subsequently deleterious public policy consequences, I wish 20% of Americans can feel they are in the top 1% once again.

[Johonny]

15. good point

[Kievan Rus]

9. People exaggerate about themselves a lot

[City Lights]

11. You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones Dubya went after.

What fools.

[Salviati]

12. This is why it always bugs me when Dems cite taxes that will only affect the top x% of taxpayers

because far too many people will think that they belong to that percentage. They're not quite so bad about that anymore, and give actual dollar values that people can compare with their own income.

[Joanne98]

13. The moran country.

[HughBeaumont]

16. Horatio Alger. Believe it at your own peril.

"It's called Capituhlism. Yew don't like yer lot in life, yew hafta WERK HAWRDER!!"

The joke is I'm not kidding. This is exactly what those assvacuums believe. That if we just worked a little bit harder than we're already working, we'll be rich someday too!!

Reality, however, proves to be a nice cold sledgehammer to the balls.

Despite Sowell’s insistence that tax brackets tell the real story of income distribution and economic mobility, the increasing wealth disparities between upper-class and working-class Americans confirm that indeed, the rich are getting richer at the expense of the rest of the U.S. population.

The real median income on has increased steadily since 1947, from $22,000 to just over $50,000 in 2003. Since 1979 then incredibly divergent income patterns have developed between the rich and the poor. There has been an almost negligible growth for the median and 20th percentile, with explosive growth at the top 95th percentile. The increase in income inequality since the 1970s can be described as the middle class squeeze, with the greatest changes in the bottom third and the top third. In the bottom third, income is generally as it was almost 30 years ago. The top 1% of the population have seen their incomes more than double. Among the poorest people, income grew during 1995 and 2004 due to the increase in annual hours worked, but the increase was very small. The opposite is true for the elite. According to Gregory Mantsios, director of Working Education at CUNY, “the wealthiest 20 percent of the American population holds 85 percent of the total household wealth in the country,” a statistic that does not offer much hope for the remaining percentage of the population.<10>

The poor are becoming poorer and owing more money. In 1985, the average working-class citizen owed $500, compared to $8,000 today. For the top 5%, wealth (income and assets) has increased from about $500,000 to about $1,000,000. In 2005, the average family had a net worth of $80,000. The poverty level is also much too low for the Horatio Alger myth to be applied in modern society: “a total of 14 percent of the American population – that is, one of every seven – live below the government’s official poverty line (calculated in 1996 at $7,992 for an individual and $16,209 for a family of four)”.<11>

(snip)

Evidently, as Dalton proclaimed, we are living in an era of diminished opportunities for most; this is especially true for minorities and women.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. And all their children are above average. nt

[bluestateguy]

19. And yet the over $200,000 income voters voted 52% for Obama

And that was after he said he would end their Bush tax cuts.

Last October I walked precincts for Obama with an 18 year old girl from a well to do family. She and her parents would be likely to pay some of those higher taxes (yes her parents were for Obama too). We went door to door in a trailer park community, and found half of the people said they were voting for McCain!

[Kat45]

20. I've heard that before and it always blows my mind.

I just don't understand how so many people think that they are so rich. And yes, that's a big part of why so many people vote against their own best interests.

[Wednesdays]

21. K&R

:kick:

[Wilms]

22. .