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Comment by edblarney | Hacker News Reader

"Unless you're exceptionally lucky as well as exceptionally successful, it takes more than one working lifetime to amass enough wealth to be in the top 1%, and so you will only get there if you inherit some significant amount of wealth."

Not really. In terms of income, it's $500K/year.

If you go into certain kinds of banking from a decent school, and do well, you can 'easily' earn that.

Again, this is 1% income, not assets of which I'm speaking.

But even then - if you spend 30 years in banking, and do well, you'll probably be in the 1%.

If you were to say the top 0.05% - I think I might be more inclined to agree with you.

Most of the 1% are not 'rich', they're really the upper bounds of 'upper middle class' - I'd say the 0.1% is where you can start calling yourself 'wealthy' in terms of economic class.

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I'm sorry, but you must be out of touch with reality.

Certain kinds of banking from a decent school? You mean an Ivy League or top school with acceptance rates lower than 20%?

The reality is, you must be exceptionally lucky to have the circumstances that get you into your so-called "decent" school that gets you into "certain kids of banking" that allow you to "easily" earn 1% income.

I have worked in the finance industry. The people making 500K all have a pedigree. Those who come from humble backgrounds are exceptionally rare.

Truth

" The people making 500K all have a pedigree. Those who come from humble backgrounds are exceptionally rare."

There are 3 million people in America earning more than $500K a year.

If any Ivy graduates 5K/year, let's say a nice round 10 Ivy Schools - that's 50K/year or 500K grads every 10 years.

That means it would take 60 years for the Ivies to produce enough grads to make up that 3 million.

At a '20% of Ivy grads to 1%-er rate' - you get only about 20% of those 3 million '1%-ers' as Ivy League grads.

Ergo - the clear majority of 1%-ers are not Ivy League grads. Not even close.

In banking, admittedly, it might be a little a higher ratio than other industries.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/economix/2012/01/17/measuri...

Using data from 2010,

* ...estimated the threshold for being in the top 1 percent in household income at about $380,000, 7.5 times median household income, using census data from 2008 through 2010.

* But for net worth, the 1 percent threshold for net worth in the Fed data was nearly $8.4 million, or 69 times the median household’s net holdings of $121,000.

>There are 3 million people in America earning more than $500K a year

There aren't nearly that many people earning $500k a year regularly. A huge percentage of the people in a given year who earn that much did so because of a one time real estate sale. Then you have another large chunk who some kind of temporary windfall--particularly good bonuses, commissions etc... And people who sold a business.

Basically if you look at people who regularly make $500k+ from a job, the percentage from top schools is going to be very high.

...so those who are part of the <20% who get into those top schools are "lucky," and that's why they get in?

Yes, to a large degree. A child born to a stable 2 parent family where both parents have college degrees and earn a high income is much more likely to get into a good school than the child of a single parent who makes $10 an hour at Walmart.

And the children from disadvantaged backgrounds who make it into good schools do it mostly through luck, since intelligence is a byproduct of inheritance and environment. Even work ethic is mostly a learned behavior.

"I'm sorry, but you must be out of touch with reality."

You obviously don't know any bankers, and probably don't have exposure to the industry.

There are tons of middle-class folks who earn $500K/year in banking, most of whom did not attend Ivy League - even if they did - it's not a big deal as most who do attend Ivy League are in fact 'middle class'.

Apparently being in the top 1% of income earners is "middle class".

That's a pretty severe bell curve you got going there.

Yes, it's definitely 'middle class'.

$500K/year is mid-range doctor salary (some earn much more) - it's enough to have a nice house or flat (probably in an expensive area - meaning that its' not even that nice, just has a good location), nice cars, travel, a cleaner, pay for your kids private schools, and have a cottage/second house.

But not that much more than that.

After all the 'added expenses' of a upper-middle-class lifestyle, they can sock away some money, but not that much.

I know several families in this range and you would not consider them 'rich' by any means. They're just 'well off'.

To be 'economic upper class' you'd have to be way past the many millions in net worth. I'd say more than $20 million at least. Probably more.

You're using extremely subjective labels 'rich','well off'. These terms mean different things to different people.

Also, the discussion was around income, not net worth.

> $500K/year is mid-range doctor salary (some earn much more) - it's enough to have a nice house or flat (probably in an expensive area - meaning that its' not even that nice, just has a good location), nice cars, travel, a cleaner, pay for your kids private schools, and have a cottage/second house.

The suggestion that this is a middle class lifestyle is patently absurd.

http://www.businessinsider.com/middle-class-in-every-us-stat...

"In this analysis, Pew defined middle class households as those earning 67%-200% of a state's median income. So ... how much is that?"

... < $150,000 in all states.

This [1] indicates average doctors' income in the US is about $200K, and specialists' average is about $285K. That seems to exclude your statement "$500K/year is mid-range doctor salary...".

[1] http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/compensation/2015...

> After all the 'added expenses' of a upper-middle-class lifestyle

You mean if you earn a lot but then make the decision to spend a lot, there's not much money left over, making you middle class?

You seem to treat it as a given that if your income is high, you necessarily ratchet up your lifestyle expenses to a point where there's "not that much" left over.

What if your income is $4 million per year? After all the 'added expenses' of an upper-class lifestyle, you're certainly left back in the... middle class...?

Even if true, there is obviously not enough of these high pay jobs to go around. If there were it'd be a 2%er job.

Your numbers are incredibly stretched.

I'd like to see your sources.

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