What does the top 1% earn per year?

[NewJeffCT]

How much does the top 1% make per year? I have heard many times that the top 1% benefited most from the Bush tax cuts, but what does that translate into per year? Is it $1 million per year, or $500,000, or what? I saw in a Paul Krugman column recently that the top 0.01% make over $5 million per year, but I have not seen a range for people that make less than that.

Yes, I did try google, but I must have entered the wrong criteria.

[IChing]

1. top 1 percent of households' average wealth is $12.5 million

link: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/America/Wealth_Divide.html
The Wealth Divide

The Growing Gap in the United States Between the Rich and the Rest

An interview with Edward Wolff

Multinational Monitor, May 2003

MM: How does the U.S. wealth profile compare to other countries?

Wolff: We are much more unequal than any other advanced industrial country.

Perhaps our closest rival in terms of inequality is Great Britain. But where the top percent in this country own 38 percent of all wealth, in Great Britain it is more like 22 or 23 percent.

What is remarkable is that this was not always the case. Up until the early 1970s, the U.S. actually had lower wealth inequality than Great Britain, and even than a country like Sweden. But things have really turned around over the last 25 or 30 years. In fact, a lot of countries have experienced lessening wealth inequality over time. The U.S. is atypical in that inequality has risen so sharply over the last 25 or 30 years.

MM: To what extent is the wealth inequality trend simply reflective of the rising level of income inequality?

Wolff: Part of it reflects underlying increases in income inequality, but the other significant factor is what has happened to the ratio between stock prices and housing prices. The major asset of the middle class is their home. The major assets of the rich are stocks and small business equity. If stock prices increase more quickly than housing prices, then the share of wealth owned by the richest households goes up. This turns out to be almost as important as underlying changes in income inequality. For the last 25 or 30 years, despite the bear market we've had over>>>>snip

[havocmom]

2. Don't know, but BIG difference between "earn" and "make"

What they MAKE skew the numbers for what 'average American' earns.

[undergroundpanther]

3. Salaries are one thing

but you gotta add in their assets.. like land,dividends from stocks,the interest on their big ass bank accounts,and all the other shit they own the art, houses,the fine wines, expensive cars, boats & private planes, collector edition this or that's,the gold and jewelry,and of course"gifts" ... that too adds up concerning how much wealth a person has. Just look at an SSI form to get a grasp on the concept of how penny pinching bean counters determine how much someone has, they ask about every conceivable source of wealth a person could get to. This type of nit picky assessment should be done for the top 1%,than we would know EXACTLY how much they have taken away from the world to have what they hoard..and since they are destroying this world we will know how much we need to take back and redistribute to each other to save this planet from the effects of their rapacious greed.

[Finder]

7. If you add in assets that makes most middle class people millionaires...

on paper anyway.

[abluelady]

9. What Do You Call the Middle Class

There is no piece of paper that shows me to be a millionaire! I want that paper.

[Finder]

11. You may be surprised...

by listing all your household assets..home, property, vehicles, IRAs, 401Ks, stocks, Jewelry, furniture, etc...

[abluelady]

12. Not sure paste jewelery

or Ikea furniture makes my assets a millionaires! lol

[JHB]

4. Here's the Krugman quote:

Just to give you a sense of who we're talking about: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that this year the 99th percentile will correspond to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of $1,672,726. The center doesn't give a number for the 99.99th percentile, but it's probably well over $6 million a year.

[IChing]

5. Not according to my findings it is at least 12 million ...n/t

[Gormy Cuss]

8. You're quoting wealth, not earnings, aren't you?

Earnings are reported for tax purposes, as opposed to wealth which is accumulated assets.

Earnings for the top percentages tend to be understated because of ways that wealth can transfer without appearing as earnings through tax shelters and the like.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

10. no...you put up their WEALTH

not what they earn per annum...

sP

[Gormy Cuss]

6. That looks about right.

In an article written in 2003 David Cay Johnston, tax writer for the NY Times had $347,000 for the top 1% and $1.3 million for the top 0.1%

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/05/business/05tax.html?ei=5090&en=912f752ebdc64a9a&ex=1286164800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

[NewJeffCT]

13. Thanks - just what I was looking for

For some reason, I had thought it was around $1 million.