How Many Are at The Very Top?

[Wiley50]

Most of us have seen the graph at lcurve.org

How many households are in that last vertical stack on the right?

400? 4000? How many?

Just curious.

And, for that matter, how many are on the lowest measurable rung, those of us on SSI?

(I know that there is lower. I had nothing for 3 1/2 years while I waited for my lawyer to fight my disability through.

But I was lucky, my mom was still living. And though poor herself. She shared her roof with me and I shared my food stamps



Tour of the
US Income Distribution,
"The L-Curve"

The red line represents a graph of family income across the population. The height of the curve at any point is the height of a stack of $100 bills equalling that income. Unless you have a very old browser you will be able to zoom. Be sure to zoom both in and out.

The US population is represented along the length of the football field, arranged in order of income.

Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.)

--The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high.

--At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.

--The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line.

--From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale!

http://www.lcurve.org /

[yodoobo]

1. One

Only one can be at the very top.

(I don't think my browser displays what you are looking for. I just see a football field with two people standing the middle)

[Mr Generic Other]

2. that thin red line that goes into the stratosphere represents

11,000 households. and the income disparity between the top .10% and the bottom 1/2 of the top one percent is greater than the income disparity of the population as a whole. the top one percent earns an average of $35,500,000 but the bottom half of that percent averages close to $6,000,000.

[Wiley50]

3. Thanks! that's what I wanted

The disparity is obscene in both cases

But between where I am and any on that stack is worse

Those with $6 mil have everything they need and more

[SheilaT]

4. The real problem, I think is that most people

have no good understanding of how few people make a lot of money. And how extremely unlikely it is that they themselves will ever be in the top five percent.
I honestly think that our popular media, tv and movies, is largely to blame as they often show what are supposed to be average folks but living and consuming as if they were extremely wealthy. Then there's the constant media attention on the super-rich, as if the way they lived bore any resemblance to the life 98% of us live.

[Wiley50]

5. You're exactly right which is why I needed this info. Thanks for posting n/t