Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by tantalor | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

tantalor

> poor

The 90%ile is $129,000/yr individual income.

https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/

View on HN

Poor? No.

But wealth and income (from work) don't have anything in common. You may earn those 100k year after year, but it would still take quite a while until you land into the wealthiest 10%, if ever.

While I take your point that wealth is always more unequally distributed than income, income inequality and wealth inequality are definitely related. The degree to which they're related depends a lot on the tax and regulatory regime. In the United States, income inequality is high relative to most other Western countries, and the top 1% and top 0.1% shares particularly so; this means that if you're at the top of the income distribution you can become wealthy faster. In a country like France, where top marginal tax rates are higher, executive compensation is lower, and estate taxes are less progressive, inheritance and bequests play a (relatively!) more important role in the wealth distribution.

From that same site, 90% net worth is ~1.25m. https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentile-calculator-united-sta...

If you contribute 2k a month at 7% interest that would take you 23 years. A long time yes, but certainly achievable on a 100k salary. Of course I know the interest rate might not be that going forward, but the point still stands.

No, because in your scenario the people who have $1.25M in assets now are going to have $6M in 23 years (invested at the same rate), so these high earners still won't end up in the top 10%.

This is, I'm sure, is what the parent means. Compared to people with capital, people on high incomes are always behind.

If you earn more than average, spend less than your peers, and invest wisely then you might move up a bit on the wealth scale, but that's it.

I think the idea is that some of the people that have $1.25M now are not going to be around in 23 years, and that money will have gone to [inheritance, eldercare, etc], so who makes up the top 10% will change simply because of demographics.

As far as inheritance goes, nowadays inheritance will actually concentrate wealth as rich people tend to only have one kid.

harder to make 100k 23 years ago than it is today. by the time you finish a 2k/mo journey you begin today, 1.25M will be no longer be the cutoff for top 10%

The 90%ile of Household Net Worth in US is $1.2 million. Is that poor?

https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-net-worth-percentiles/

129k a year is not a lot of money.

Say you live in NYC, you have a stay at home partner and 2 kids.

Your living paycheck to paycheck.

I'd consider anything less than 200k for a family to be working class. As in your unlikely to be able to survive for extended periods of time without working.

If your monthly expenses are 9k, even your take home is 11k your in for a ride if you lose your job.

Unemployment has a miserably low max benefit.

Similarly, if you make only $2M/yr and live in a golden penthouse in downtown Manhattan, you’re barely scraping by. Why doesn’t anyone think of these poor souls?

His comment seems fair. This random website[0] says the average US living cost for a family of 4 is about $55K/yr.

I don't know what $130K after taxes is, but if I take a wild guess and say $85K, that leaves around $30K for savings and investments.

Single income living isn't easy in western society.

[0] https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/country/united-sta...

If your job requires you to be in New York I'm not clear what else you can do.

Income doesn't scale well in America. If anything taxes are way too high on middle class people. No one making less than a million a year should pay over 30% in taxes.

I keep telling people that my job requires this diamond throne and handsome set of fine watches, but they refuse to give me a raise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com