http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/who_are_the_percent_b53YH1O3zjel3L6wRJmjbI

according to a surprisingly eye-opening piece in the normally pro-OWS New York Times

The paper studied those with incomes in the top 1 percent of selected regions around the country.
Folks falling into that category are less likely to be “fat cats” than they are to be doctors (one in five) — or people who’ve built thriving family businesses from the bottom up.


Indeed, some 60 percent have succeeded on their own, without inherited wealth.

They’ve done so through a combination of education and intense hard work — three times more likely than the “99 percent” to work 50 hours a week or more.
They account for nearly one in three dollars of all philanthropic giving.

And while they earn less than 20 percent of all pre-tax income nationally, they pay more than 25 percent of all federal taxes.

They’re also spread out across the heartland — not just in New York and Los Angeles.

And their income varies regionally, too — it takes $790,000 a year to make the cut in Manhattan and $900,000 in Stamford. But in Macon, Ga., it takes just $270,000 — a figure that would be just upper-middle-class in Manhattan.

And while they have more children than middle- and upper-middle-class families, they don’t have more cars.

In other words, they’re hardly the idle rich.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/business/the-1-percent-paint-a-more-nuanced-portrait-of-the-rich.html?pagewanted=all


How many 1% people here inherited their money vs who earned it?

 

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Flawed approach.

 

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They still have all the money. The rest have to struggle.

 

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Should making money be something easy to do?

 

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Nope. I've never questioned the hard work they do.

 

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The "1%" that people are complaining about is more like the top 0.2%, but 99%/1% are close enough to convey what people mean and are easier to sloganize than 99.8%/0.2%.

The top 1% does catch a lot of doctors and other skilled working professionals as the article notes who aren't what the protests are about.

 

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So 1% people who earned their money struggled to get to where they are?


Creating an Opportunity Society by Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill.

Here’s the excerpt with the reference as to how to avoid poverty:

Our research shows that if you want to avoid poverty and join the middle class in the United States, you need to complete high school (at a minimum), work full time and marry before you have children. If you do all three, your chances of being poor fall from 12 percent to 2 percent, and your chances of joining the middle class or above rise from 56 to 74 percent. (We define middle class as having an income of at least $50,000 a year for a family of three.)


Think theres any truth to the above? Their definition of what middle class is off due to region but the 3 items listed, any truth to them?

 

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This...

I was going to welcome Grymlo to about 3 months ago, but alas - it would be lost in translation and a waste of time.

 

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A waste of time is coming here every day to read whats posted!

 

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