Who are "the one percent?"
CNN Money reports that Americans make up half of the world's richest 1%, although it is important to read the entire article to get the full picture:
The United States holds a disproportionate amount of the world's rich people.The rest of the article is here.
It only takes $34,000 a year, after taxes, to be among the richest 1% in the world. That's for each person living under the same roof, including children. (So a family of four, for example, needs to make $136,000.)
So where do these lucky rich people live? As of 2005 -- the most recent data available -- about half of them, or 29 million lived in the United States, according to calculations by World Bank economist Branko Milanovic in his book The Haves and the Have-Nots.
. . .
The true global middle class, falls far short of owning a home, having a car in a driveway, saving for retirement and sending their kids to college. In fact, people at the world's true middle -- as defined by median income -- live on just $1,225 a year. (And, yes, Milanovic's numbers are adjusted to account for different costs of living across the globe.)
In the grand scheme of things, even the poorest 5% of Americans are better off financially than two thirds of the entire world.
Labels: one percent
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