
What Jobs Do the Top 1% Have? - uptown
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/newsgraphics/2012/0115-one-percent-occupations/index.html?ref=business
======
bluedevil2k
This was a particularly interesting article. You had to spend some time to
look through it to find some good take-aways.

\- Physicians and dentists are not only a large number of the 1%, the
proportion of dentists and physicians who become part of the 1% is extremely
high - about 20% combined.

\- I was struck by the seemingly high number of secretaries on the list. Yes,
I know the chart represents "1% households", but this made me smile, since I
figured it means a lot of powerful men are marrying their secretaries.

\- For the ridiculous amounts of money that athletes seem to earn (and I don't
have a problem with them earning that much), they are a very small share of
the 1%, and the chances of a professional athlete becoming a 1%er is low too,
only 2% of them.

\- And since this is a tech/programmer site, the relatively low numbers of
computer science/software people in the 1% seems to indicate that our chosen
profession "tops out" at a certain income level below that 1%.

~~~
gcp
_And since this is a tech/programmer site, the relatively low numbers of
computer science/software people in the 1% seems to indicate that our chosen
profession "tops out" at a certain income level below that 1%_

This is an interesting point to take away. If you are smart and want to get
rich, going into engineering is not your best bet. Same for scientists.

No wonder there are shortages, eh?

~~~
barrkel
Well, if there were actually shortages, then wages would increase until the
"shortages" disappear.

This notion of "shortage" bugs me. There's two sides to a "shortage": supply
and demand; but they meet at a point determined by price, where both are
equal. There is always a "shortage": demand for engineers that isn't fulfilled
by supply, because they can't afford to pay the engineers enough. But there is
also always a "surplus": too many engineers to warrant high income levels in
the 1%, etc.

A shortage would actually exist in a rigid market with inefficiencies, e.g.
price fixing. To the degree that's not true, we don't have a shortage.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"Well, if there were actually shortages, then wages would increase until
> the "shortages" disappear."_

This is a common thought I see a lot on HN, but it's completely bollocks.

The elasticity of salary is not infinitely scalable, and is heavily based on
the costs and profitability of the business. Say we took away _all_ the taxi
cab drivers in the world, demand would be immense and supply would be next to
nil - in your fantasy world cab drivers would start making hojillions.

But of course, there is an upper bound to the value of a cab ride - cab fares
would rise, but it won't not rise to astronomical levels simply because the
cost will start exceeding the utility of the ride itself.

So yeah, in a shortage situation developer pay would rise - and rise they
have, particularly in hotly-contested areas like the Bay, but this entitled
attitude where "there's no shortage! I'm not making a million bucks a year
yet!" is complete horseshit.

~~~
barrkel
Cab rides have substitutes: your feet, mass transit, your own car (including
the costs of parking), up to being carried around on a litter[1], which
_would_ be a very expensive. This limits the "hojillions" available to single
cab drivers.

If there was 10x the supply of programmers, we could have 10x the number of
jobs for them to do: they could be coming around to your house and offering to
automate various bits and pieces of your life, they could be hanging around at
traffic lights helping people stopped in cars optimize their phone usage, etc.

The profitability of the business is in part a function of its costs. That the
business exists at all is based on an assumption of a certain level of costs,
where at different costs other options may be more viable.

What I'm getting at is that there is a circularity in your objection. You
assume things about the current state of supply and demand based on the
current market mix of businesses, but the current market mix of businesses is
the way it is in part because of the current state of supply and demand.

Yes, there is certainly a lack of elasticity in salary. The market isn't
perfect. People aren't fungible. But the market is efficient enough to value
e.g. doctors and lawyers quite highly. It simply doesn't value software
engineers in the same way. That's just the way it is; I'm not saying it's
right or wrong, and nor am I moaning about my wages (actually, I deliberately
choose lower wages in return for more interesting work and flexibility in
where I live).

What I _am_ moaning about is people talking about an excess of supply or
demand, like it's a plain fact.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litter_%28vehicle%29>

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jerfelix
This is a bit misleading. They incorrectly haphazardly swap "income" and
"wealth":

The subtitle says "Explore the occupations and industries of the nation’s
wealthiest households." Yet the chart note is "The chart counts the number of
individual workers living in households with an overall income in the top 1
percent nationwide."

This implies that a retired multimillionaire with a 300K passive income isn't
in the wealthiest one percent, and a couple with a negative net worth (e.g.
bought a $2 million dollar house that's now only worth a million; and no
savings), with two $190K jobs is in the wealthiest one percent. Of course this
is nonsense.

~~~
jws
Plus, most of the entries are a mess of "spouse" jobs. e.g. They have 8k
receptionists in the top 1% and 7k laborers. Dropping the lowest income
household earners that weren't required in order to reach 1% would focus the
data better.

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micheljansen
Interestingly, this graph visualises the jobs of people in the wealthiest
_households_. It does not mean that those jobs actually bring in the wealth.

I was surprised to see the relatively large box of elementary school teachers.
Surely those jobs don't pay that well. It might be one of those cases where
correlation is mistaken for causation: perhaps a lot of people who dream to be
a teacher are able to realise it because they have a wealthy banker for a
spouse or something.

~~~
patio11
Two married schoolteachers in a wealthy suburban school district near their
peak earning years will gross nearly $200k for the household. (I'm related to
multiple examples.)

The BLS collects copious stats on how much different occupations are paid.
Reports of them being working poor are highly exaggerated.

~~~
burgerbrain
Two working people earning $200k together isn't what I would describe as
particularly wealthy. That would put them squarely in what most people
consider slightly upper-middle class. Consider that two engineers right out of
college should be able to make that much.

~~~
ZachPruckowski
>"Two working people earning $200k together isn't what I would describe as
particularly wealthy"

You probably should, since the median household income is something like $50k
or so, a quarter of what they make.

~~~
cma
In what proportion are those: A. two person households, and B. two fulltime
worker households?

------
andyking
For anyone interested, a similar list for the UK was published in the Guardian
a couple of months ago. There are a few visualisations available, and the
data's also there for download:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/25/highest-paid-
job...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/25/highest-paid-jobs-uk-2011)

~~~
nvarsj
I tried looking for programmer, and this is what I found. I really hope this
is just a poor job on the guardian's part!

22\. IT strategy/planning professional £43,667 -8.5%

10th pct: £24,000. 80th pct✝: £63,693.

Also known as: Analyst-programmers; computer programmers; software engineers;
systems analysts; systems designers. What they do: Provide advice on the
effective utilisation of IT in order to enhance business functions. Well I
never: A recent poll suggested IT consultants have unusually adventurous
personalities.

------
tedsuo
Paul Krugman with the breakdown for the top .1%:
[http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/but-the-
top-0-1-...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/but-the-
top-0-1-percent-isnt-diverse/)

------
spitfire
Interesting to note, the three largest boxes Physician, Lawyer and Teacher are
all legally protected professions.

~~~
forensic
Yep. This is the big American secret the working class can't seem to discover.

The elite have busted the unions, but professional associations are stronger
than ever. Doctors do it to avoid free trade, they are protectionist, and
surprise! They get paid for it.

The primary purpose of professional associations is to protect the wealth of
the members, and this is done by lobbying for protectionism.

~~~
rdouble
Doctors are really the last strong professional association, though.

Lawyers have a cabal, but it's pretty weak. There's no cap on new lawyers or
people attending law school. If you are dumb and/or have bad grades you can
always attend a 4th tier law school. In contrast, there aren't 4th tier med
schools. Someone who gets their MD at University of North Dakota is still
going to be making $150K, worst case scenario. Lawyers on the other hand have
lower average wages than one might think.
<http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos053.htm#earnings> It's just that a handful of
certain lawyers, like trial lawyers, can make infinite money so others assume
all types of lawyers are rich.

~~~
repsilat
> Lawyers have a cabal, but it's pretty weak... you can always attend a 4th
> tier law school.

Getting a school accredited by the A.B.A. is expensive [1], and if the schools
necessarily cost a lot of money to run then the students largely come out with
big debts to pay off. The article says essentially that the U.S. is
oversupplied with "expensive" lawyers and has a strong unmet demand for
"reasonably priced" legal services.

Moreover, there are a lot of people talking about how law graduates in the US
are underprepared for their work - there's a recognition that some traditional
curricula don't provide enough practical know-how to function in the real-
world without serious on-the-job training. Law is essentially a vocational
degree, and there is evidence that the standards governing the accreditation
of law schools (and so lawyers) aren't aligned with the needs of the country.

I'll grant that the gatekeepers of the medical profession may have a stronger
hold on things, but there are decent arguments for liberalisation of the legal
market.

1: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/business/for-law-
schools-a...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/business/for-law-schools-a-
price-to-play-the-abas-way.html)

------
crgt
"The picture is clear; entry into the top 0.5% and, particularly, the top 0.1%
is usually the result of some association with the financial industry and its
creations."

This article makes an important distinction between the top 1% and the top .1%
that the NYT piece glosses over:

[http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manage...](http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html)

~~~
yummyfajitas
Your article is a bit deceptive - "some association with the financial
industry" can mean an entrepreneur who made their money by building equity in
a startup rather than earning a salary:

 _One of our clients, net worth in the $60M range, built a small company and
was acquired with stock from a multi-national. Stock is often called a "paper"
asset. Another client, CEO of a medium-cap tech company, retired with a net
worth in the $70M range. The bulk of any CEO's wealth comes from stock, not
income, and incomes are also very high... Another client with a net worth in
the $10M range is the ex-wife of a managing director of a major investment
bank, while another was able to amass $12M after taxes by her early thirties
from stock options as a high level programmer in a successful IT company._

So by their criteria, Larry and Sergei, Steve Jobs, etc, all made their money
"as a result of some association with the financial industry".

------
hnta
Interesting. I just did two years to get M.Sc. and started working full-time
in IT myself. It is strange.. I always figured I'd eventually be making good
money, and I didn't think much more of it. Now soon 30, some of my friends are
making a lot more than I do. Only lately do I realize that when my uncle said
I should specialize in something other than pure IT 10 years ago (himself
having worked in IBM the past.. 10-20 years?), he was right..

This is mostly considering the money-aspect of it. I'll always program, but I
don't feel it HAS to be my full-time job, it could be my hobby. Maybe I could
have done smart things in the financial service, for instance? Or the oil
sector.. I guess the only way to richness in IT is startups or a do other
things than program. But it is really hard to do programming full-time at work
and then focus on my own thing in my "free-time".

Ah well. Another life.

------
mdda
Who else was expecting to open up the diagram and find a bright red box in the
top left with Finance written on it? How surprising it was to see that the 1%
that everyone is complaining about are faceless managers, doctors and
lawyers... Naturally, I'll need to see the .1% diagram, so that the hateful
Financiers are in the position they deserve.

(I'm paraphrasing some of the other comments on this topic)

~~~
jonstjohn
Exact same feeling here. Perhaps it should be 'Occupy Your Doctor's Office'
rather than Wall Street.

------
cemery
The visualization was confusing for me at first. It's important to realize
that if <1% of a group is in the 1% there is a fair chance that they are not
the ones bringing in the wealth. Instead they have married into wealth. The
darkness of the squares is much more informative then the size of the squares.

In some ways I feel the graphic is misleading since I'm not horribly
interested in what groups happen into the 1%, and much more interested in what
groups create the 1%.

------
andr3w321
They should do this for the top .1% and show that 90% of them are in finance.

~~~
hkmurakami
I'm actually keen on this as well. The U.S. population is currently about 300
million people. So 1% is 3 million people, which is an awfully large number.

I've read in several places that it's the 0.1% who have the true wealth and
stature to control the legislature for their own benefit. So who's in the
0.1%?

I'd definitely like to know.

~~~
anonLSD
Of course this is not the same, statistically, but one thing I have done in
the past is to find the most ridiculously expensive property in an area, look
up the tax records online, and then google the owners. It takes a bit of work,
but the picture that emerges is quite interesting.

For example, I live in the Seattle area, and I know where the mega-wealthy
enclaves are here. Who owns the biggest mansions? Microsoft executives,
members of the Nordstrom family, members of the construction family who built
the Space Needle, people connected with Daniel's Broiler, some guy who
invented a new kind of eyeglasses, a congressman's ex-wife, a woman who grew
and sold her IT consulting firm, a guy who built a successful condo listing
website, doctors, the founder of an investment firm, a commercial real estate
developer... In short, it was mainly key players in big local businesses,
entrepreneurs, and a small handful of physicians.

I imagine if one did this for NYC, the picture would look predictably
different.

EDIT: I forgot, the site virtualglobetrotting.com makes this easier. Hamptons
example: [http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/lloyd-blankfeins-
house/n...](http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/lloyd-blankfeins-
house/nearby/?d=50)

------
DanielBMarkham
I'm not a UX guy, but I love this graph. Lots of data in an easy-to-explore
format.

Having said that, I'm not sure if the colors were important enough to merit
being included. Do I really care that some occupation gives people a better
chance of being in the 1%? Probably not. I'd rather see how many total dollars
we are talking about. For instance, do the 1% working securities law make a
bunch more than the 1% who are construction managers? By how much?

I'll attempt a tl;dr, although you really should read the article. The 1%
consists mostly of: managers, physicians, and lawyers, maybe with elementary
and middle-school administrators thrown in as well.

I would caution to be careful of drawing too many conclusions, however. Every
time we have these discussions it's the little details that always get you.
It's very easy to feel like you are learning more than you actually are.
Always be suspicious of aggregated data, especially when you are looking for
insight. I blogged about this last month.
([http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2011/12/management-
by...](http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2011/12/management-by-s.php))

Guys like lawyers and school principals fit into nice, little boxes.
Entrepreneurs don't. I run into this every time I fill out a government form.
For instance I know a guy locally who runs a couple of convenience stores,
sells fuel on the side (by "on the side" I mean hundreds of thousands of
gallons or more a month through home heating oil trucks, propane, etc.) , has
a go-cart track, and is getting into e-commerce. What do you call him? A fuel
speculator? Grocery manager? Entertainer? We talk about this all the time on
HN, even though we don't know it. Take your average startup, say Stripe, are
they a technology company? We would probably say so, but they also look a lot
like a financial services company. How about the guy who's a lawyer and helps
startups in a participatory manner for equity. Is he a VC? A lawyer manager? A
partner? Yes, I know the IRS has legal definitions, but when looking at data
like this the legal definitions don't really fit the discussion -- it just
leaves us more questions than we started with.

The category of many of these business alone is problematic, much less trying
to figure out job titles. Real innovation happens between the cracks. It
doesn't fit into nice little boxes. The economy works because people are free
to pick and choose little bits of all kinds of things to refashion them into
something new that never existed before, so the parts that aren't being
tracked here are the most important. Once you start looking at aggregates,
averages, and deviations, you can make numbers say about anything you want.

~~~
rhino42
Actually, I really looked the colors, it adds another dimension to the data:
"given that you have X job, what is the chance that you would become filthy
rich". I was actually frustrated with the graph until I noticed the meaning of
the colors (viewing on a cell phone didn't help)

~~~
vannevar
Yes, the colors indicate the correlation between the profession and the
income. A darker color means that the profession is more likely to actually
contribute to the income, while a lighter color means that those 1-percenters
probably married into wealth or inherited passive income. In a graph
showcasing the professions of the wealthy, the color is actually more
significant than the relative sizes of the boxes.

~~~
rhino42
Actually it's even more helpful than that: the lightest color indicates a less
than one percent chance of entering the one percent, which means that that job
does "worse than chance at achieving "one percent status".

------
redwood
Assuming this is only looking at 'income' and not capital gains / dividends,
this is highly misleading because many wealthy live off the former, though
it's a bit difficult to find numbers. Also if everyone is listing their
occupations, it's only natural that many choose generic ones rather than "I
live off inherited family money dividends" or equivalent

------
ww520
Teachers can make lots of money, via tutoring. I know teachers, besides their
regular jobs, who have been charging $80 to $100 a hour for tutoring, for 10
to 20 hours a week. Also their regular jobs only take 9 months so they got
time for other jobs. They can easily pull in 150K to 180K a year.

------
rhino42
The data in this graph is flawed.

I only see one major box categorized as "engineer", and it says that 1/4 of
all engineers are architecture or surveying. Try 1/20, perhaps. 1/4 is _way_
too large. The only engineering majors that large are EECS and Mechanical, I
bet.

------
senor_mills
I think the problem with drawing the line at the 99% vs 1% is that it let's
the bottom 90% of the 1% side with the top 10% of the 1%. (Refering to this
previously mentioned link:
[http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manage...](http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html))

"We are the 99.9%" isn't as catchy but strategically it would make sense.

------
tocomment
Whats the deal with managers ranking above CEO s.

~~~
spacemanaki
The visualization is a bit confusing, but it makes sense that the manager box
is larger than the CEO box since as others have pointed out there are more
managers than CEOs, however notice that the CEO box is noticeably darker than
the manager box, indicating that CEOs are more likely to be in the 1% than
managers.

It's not a terrific visualization. It's a bit difficult to compare box sizes
and colors.

------
RobLach
Cashiers... :|

~~~
amorphid
On what planet could a cashier make that much money? I need to research this!

------
hnwh
so basically, about 1% of everyone is in the 1%.. surprise

------
mjwalshe
The 1% don't have "Jobs" even the high paid banker with a 2 million bonus
isn't realy one of the 1%

~~~
ldite
Well, according to the other NYT article on the front page the annual
household income required to be in the top 1% is $383,000. Many people in the
top 1% probably don't consider themselves to be all that wealthy...

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-
percent-map.html)

~~~
brainless
Annual household income => $383K is a bit surprising? Or do I just have a
wrong picture of rich people. I thought it would be much more.

~~~
gigantor
I thought this as well, but you may be comparing against a Forbes richest
people list. The majority of the people I talk to (even devs) think $100,000
is a very large sum of money. Also, just by having a decent salary in the
US/Canada, income-wise you're easily the top 1% of the world:
<http://www.globalrichlist.com/>

~~~
senor_mills
Just to clarify, that URL is about annual income whereas the list of Forbes
billionaires is about net worth.

    
    
       annual income != net worth (aka wealth)

------
hypnotist
Hmm... I'm thinking top 1% people do not have a job anymore, other people are
working for them.

Or at least this is what I would do if I would be in top 1% :)

