David Sirota: Earlier this year, for example, Hillary Clinton made headlines when, in response to a question about her personal fortune, she claimed her family was dead broke when they left the White House. That statement followed New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide casting those making $500,000 a year as merely upper middle class. According to IRS data, 99 percent of American households make less than $388,000 a year, and 95 percent make less than $167,000 a year. The true middle in terms of income — that is, the cutoff to be in the top 50 percent of earners — is roughly $35,000 a year. Of course, there remains a bit of a debate about what constitutes rich in America. A recent New York Times poll showed 27 percent of Americans believe a family of four can be considered rich if its annual income is between $100,000 and $200,000, while another 20 percent say rich is defined as making between $200,000 and $300,000 a year. A recent study by Harvard University and Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University found Americans grossly underestimate the divide between CEO and average worker pay. Such misperceptions were recently spotlighted by comedian Chris Rock in an interview with New York magazine. Of inequality, he said: People don’t even know [about it]. If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.”
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 13:35:05 +0000