
Are You Rich? This Income-Rank Quiz Might Change How You See Yourself - dankohn1
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/01/upshot/are-you-rich.html
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esotericn
> In your view, being “rich” means having an income in the ... > Don’t
> know/none of these

Wealth.

Or unearned income. Which approximately no-one actually thinks about when they
say "income".

Basically the whole thing is pointless due to that.

~~~
opportune
Completely agree.

Sure a young person making $200k+ in the Bay Area is “rich” but it’s not even
comparable to people who have inherited massive amounts of wealth or have
become rich through ownership in a rapidly growing company (which also isn’t
income, but capital gains). You can’t even afford a 2k sqft home in a nice
(accessible, safe, decent schools) area on that income - doesn’t feel rich to
me.

This kind of logic is what keeps the upper-middle class of the US paying high
taxes but shields the truly rich, I mean filthy stinking ungodly rich, from
paying their fair share. Because they don’t acquire their massive wealth via
income, but through inheritance and capital gains

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thatfrenchguy
> You can’t even afford a 2k sqft home in a nice (accessible, safe, decent
> schools) area

I think a lot of people conflate "nice" with "one of the richest/best" in the
Bay Area, conflating middle class with upper class.

With 200k, you can afford around a million dollar home. There is a lot of
places in the bay area where you can afford a house in that range.

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lonelappde
You picked on nice but ignored accessible. Look at where employers are parking
their offices, next to million dollar trailer park spots.

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harryh
This tool is important because it makes clear one of the biggest problems in
America: the rich refuse to believe they are rich.

In Europe, top income tax rates kick in at far lower incomes often just 2-3X
the median income. The additional tax revenues generated here are used to fund
things like national health care. Similar programs will never be possible in
the US unless more Americans come to the realization that they are, in fact,
rich and deserved to be taxed as such.

~~~
rjkennedy98
But it doesn't really. I come out as rich on the scale as me and my partner
earn over > 270K together, but we wake up at 5:30 work in the morning and get
back to our 1 bedroom apartment at 5:30 at night, where we make dinner and go
to bed at 9pm. We try to save every penny we can. We have healthy retirement
accounts, but we still don't have enough job or financial security to buy a
house (we live in Boston). So yes, in many ways we are rich and certainly we
are better off than many.

But, compare that to my mom who is almost 70 and about to retire. She has 3
million + in assets including passive income > 150K a year (before a pension
and social security) with hardly any expenses. We both come out rich, but we
are lightyears apart. She lives in complete comfort as she watches her
California home go from 1.2 million to 1.6 million in value in the last few
years, in some years hardly paying any taxes due to "depreciation".

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harryh
And if we want a welfare state as robust as the one in Europe you can't just
have people like your mom pay for it. There aren't enough like her.

You've got to pay in to. Like they do in Europe.

Your choice.

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romaaeterna
If you think that "rich" is about income and not wealth, you're probably not
rich.

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asark
Yup. Rich is when money's just _there_. Like water on tap. Maybe you'd think
twice about running a hose out in the street and turning it on for a week
straight, or filling an olympic swimming pool. But if you want a glass to
drink, to rinse off a dish, to wash your hands, to run a bath, whatever, all
you do is turn a knob and there it is. You don't even think about it.

~~~
hurrdurr2
This is a great analogy.

My sister married into a wealthy family and they have so much money and assets
it's no longer a concern for them. They literally stopped thinking about money
as an issue as you described.

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JMTQp8lwXL
The dichotomy for people earning high incomes, but viewing themselves as
"average", stems from the fact that you need to be in the top 5% of income if
you want to live a stereotypical 50's style "middle class" life in a high-cost
of living area: a (modest) single family home, a car, 2 kids, health care,
children's college paid for, saving for retirement, etc.

All of the above were easily had back then on the median income. Everyone
lower than you on the income curve is cutting in places you can't see
(retirement accounts). If you observe conspicuous consumption by peers making
less, they're going deep into debt to make it happen.

The only thing not 1950's about our middle class ideals: your spouse probably
works to make ends meet.

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lm28469
We also have much more shit to spend our money on. Phones, computers,
streaming services, ride sharing, food delivery, shit delivered right to your
door in 2 hours by Bezos & co, &c.

Young people live like there is no tomorrow and then complain they can't save
money, yeah dude if you take an uber every 2 days, get food delivered every
day, get your daily $12 frappudingus from starbucks, spend 250 a months on
various subscription services and want to follow your favorite instagram
influencer during his vacation you'll have a hard time saving money.

If you're healthy and working in a first world country (US excluded) you
should be able to live comfortably. Don't have kids before 25, don't have kids
without having a plan, don't buy a fucking iphone on credit, no, you don't
_need_ that 65" TV.

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helen___keller
Thanks for the condescending remark but in some places it's demonstrably more
difficult for young people. I've been worried about the fact that property
values near the T in boston have literally doubled over the past 8 years and
I'm being left behind as prices bubble out of control, meanwhile adding a
bedroom for a future child is going to be another $1000 a month in rent, but
okay let's talk about that hulu subscription and the one time I got GrubHub
this month

~~~
lm28469
> I've been worried about the fact that property values near the T in boston
> have literally doubled over the past 8 years and I'm being left behind as
> prices bubble out of control, meanwhile adding a bedroom for a future child
> is going to be another $1000 a month in rent

I mean if you live in one of the biggest city of your country, want a kid and
a big flat next to metro station yeah you're going to have a hard time. But
that's true for any era and any city. You can't cut a pie in 8 slices and
share it with 10 000 people.

Why not scale down, move a bit out of the city, have some nature for your kid,
get a small EV, and save money ?

You might also want to vote for people who don't allow their own city to be
bought by foreign investors. The same thing is happening in paris and london,
real estate isn't for people to live in anymore, it's pure financial assets
for the rich. [https://realestate.boston.com/buying/2019/07/29/foreigner-
bu...](https://realestate.boston.com/buying/2019/07/29/foreigner-buyers-have-
cooled-on-boston-real-estate/)

~~~
helen___keller
> But that's true for any era and any city.

In particular my issue is that prices have quite literally doubled since 2012
or so. That hasn't been true for any era of any city, as you claim. The
inflation of real estate is enormous, 1920s units with 2 bedrooms that have
been trading around for 200-400k from the 90s until the recession have now
ballooned up to 800+k.

Similarly, inner suburbs with transit connection are one by one ballooning out
of control on prices as well. Somerville is now land of million dollar condos,
Watertown and Waltham have gone wild, and so on. The starter

> Why not scale down, move a bit out of the city, have some nature for your
> kid, get a small EV, and save money ?

There's no way I'm ever taking a driving commute to downtown Boston, which is
simultaneously expensive and stressful, but I am considering (when the time
comes) moving to a town where I can take a train ride back in.

> You might also want to vote for people who don't allow their own city to be
> bought by foreign investors. The same thing is happening in paris and
> london, real estate isn't for people to live in anymore, it's pure financial
> assets for the rich.

Another notable one is zoning laws, in particular legalizing missing middle
housing for the huge swathes of homes zoned for single family only (outside
Boston proper anyways). I've written to my state reps about it.

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sct202
I feel like being rich is a combination of income and like assets/net worth.
Like I know people who make 6 figures+ and live pay check to pay check because
they have a lot of expenses.

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lotsofpulp
I wouldn't consider myself rich if a health issue can knock my family off
course. Which basically means if you can't live off the labor of others, i.e.
you own capital that generates cash flow.

~~~
iron0013
If you were living off the labor of others, wouldn't a health issue be able to
knock those laborers' families off course?

~~~
lotsofpulp
Yes, but that is out of my control. I don't see any other option than taxpayer
funded healthcare to solve that issue, but I have to play the game by the
rules that exist now.

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metalliqaz
This didn't change how I see myself at all.

For me it shows that a BS and MS at a state university, plus more than 10
years of experience working in aerospace, will get you to about 60th
percentile in the Northeast US.

I should have got a god damn finance degree...

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Scuds
There's 'no trouble paying a mortgage' money and then there's "oh that's one
of Bill or Jeff's 'toy' companies" kind of money

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aresant
FYI this site employs 3 sophisticated ad networks and several other deep
tracking scripts.

No reason to expect that the information you fill in here on your actual
income, etc doesn't wind up in an leaky ad profile.

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sidlls
The sites that aggregate these data and sell them for marketing think I'm all
of the following:

\- An unmarried male in my 20s with three dogs

\- A married male in my 50s with two mortgages and high credit card
utilization

\- A high-school dropout and smoker with bad credit and a spotty work history

\- An affluent divorced male with two children and a boat among my assets

Their incompetence and lack of care has been more effective at anonymizing me
than I ever could be.

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Simulacra
Well according to this I'm not rich, but I'm getting close. I'm disappointed
it doesn't include property ownership because that might put me up there over
the magical rich line.

~~~
sct202
There's similar calculators you can use to calculate net worth rankings
instead of income based ones.

[https://personalfinancedata.com/networth-percentile-
calculat...](https://personalfinancedata.com/networth-percentile-calculator/)
[https://dqydj.com/financial-calculators-investment-
calculato...](https://dqydj.com/financial-calculators-investment-calculators-
economics-health/)

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tbirrell
I feel like age shouldn't factor in, only location. Granted expenses will be
different based on age, but they don't seem to be using expenses to determine
"rich-ness" at all.

~~~
metalliqaz
Age is strongly correlated to income. People with experience generally get
paid more. It's not particularly useful for a 25 year-old to compare
themselves to a 55 year-old.

~~~
tbirrell
Well sure, when talking about experience. But not wealth. A millionaire living
in my city is objectively wealthy regardless of age. I'm not "wealthy" by any
means. Despite that, my income is top 1% for my age-group. However the median
income for my peers is also barely above minimum wage, so thats not a terribly
helpful metric. Knowing I'm in the top 11% regardless of age is far more
helpful in understanding how I fit into my local community.

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EGreg
Speaking of feeling rich or not, Anyone ever follow this guy’s blog?

[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/all-the-posts-since-the-
begi...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/all-the-posts-since-the-beginning-of-
time/)

[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/category/mmm-
classics/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/category/mmm-classics/)

Like “hacking hedonic adaptation to get the most out of your money”

And so on.

~~~
asark
Some of the general attitude-toward-spending stuff is fine. His specific
advice is sometimes iffy, and any anecdotes/figures about his personal
situation should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Essentially treat the
voice of the blog as a character the writer's creating (as one of his jobs...)
and you'll be approaching it with the right frame of mind.

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TomVDB
For the South Bay, the top 5% household income is apparently $523k.

But this dumb website doesn’t even allow entering a household income that’s
higher than $400k.

So if you think 1% or 5% is the threshold for being rich, then nobody who
fills in this survey will ever be declared rich.

Edit: turns out you can enter your income in the field right above the slider.
But that’s not obvious at all IMO.

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kasperni
You might want to note in the title that this quiz is only applicable for
residents in the US.

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j79
> No, you’re not rich.

Thanks for confirming.

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payne92
First, I suggest doing this in private/incognito mode.

Second, the "survey" misses the most important distinction: investment income
vs earned income. Or, more directly: wealth.

A family making (say) $300k from only wages is in a VERY different situation
than the same family making that income from investments.

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bettergood
This Global Rich List does this for the global distribution and offers it for
income, and more importantly, wealth
([http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth](http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth))

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kristopolous
Yet another visceral example of why you shouldn't try to control the scroll
with javascript.

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tosser0001
For the Boston-Cambridge-Newton area they have this:

Top 5% More than $374,000

So 1 in 20 people in this area bring in more than 374K a year? That is sort of
mind-blowing. I thought I was doing fairly well, but now I feel like I'm
missing out on something...

~~~
percentiles
that's not how percentiles work. also, you'd need to know whether that value
they use is the lower bound on the top 5% and how that compares to the top 5%
for the general population

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anpama
That's exactly how they work...?

And it's stated explicitly that it's a lower bound ("More than").

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percentiles
no it is not. in any case it's referring to household incomes and only between
people who are 35 to 64. so again, no, 1/20 people are not making that much.
again, percentiles do not work in a fashion where you can take one group (35
to 64) and apply it to the entire population.

i repeat, that's not how percentiles work.

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anpama
That's exactly how they work: if the top 5% of people in some cohort earn $X
or more, then that means 1 in 20 people in that cohort earn $X or more.

OP may have confused one cohort (households) for another (individuals), but
that's irrelevant to how percentiles work.

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percentiles
What you're saying is true but is irrelevant to my point. With the original
post the claim was that 1/20 in Boston make more than 374k because the top 5%
of people between 35 and 64 make more than 374k.

Again this is not true and is not how percentiles work. What's so difficult to
understand?

If you have 98 people in Boston who are 18 who make $1 and 1 who is 40 who
makes $374K and another who is 36 who makes $10K what does this mean? It means
50% of people in Boston _between 35 and 64_ make more than 10K, but not that
half of the people in Boston in general make that much, as the original post
suggested. The original poster was claiming he or she was not doing well
because of the data NYT presented, but percentiles cannot be extrapolated from
one group to another. As you've said it's only useful for a specific cohort in
which it's measured. In my hypothetical example the person making 10k would be
in the top 2% despite being in the lower 50% for income in their cohort.

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sokoloff
Your reading of the original comment gives zero charity to their comment.
While they did not specify _for that cohort_ , I think even a plain reading
would intuit that's what they had in mind.

You're technically right.

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nsxwolf
Is this broken? My only choice after completing the questions is "[Click here
to skip the exercise altogether and see the answer for a New York area
household earning $150,000 a year.] "

~~~
dandigangi
Same! What the heck!

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lacker
This tool doesn't even work in the San Francisco area! The top income they let
you select is "$400k+", but you need an income of $498,000 to be top 5% here.

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dandigangi
I can't get this page to load / render correctly worth a damn. Even with my ad
blocker off. Lame.

