Who Are Those 1-Percent People?

I enjoyed your essay. My next door neighbor was an electrician and entrepreneur as well as a genuine WWII hero. He managed several enterprises and worked full time at his craft without benefit of a college education. Of course, he was a financial success.Current populism mandates that we villify folks such as my old neighbor and that’s wrong. Everything he had was earned through his ingnenuity and hard work.

Look, paying taxes is not a bad thing. I really don’t get this resistance by the people who benefit most from the system to pay more to support that system; well other than that they are greedy or that they don’t think that the system has helped them.Bottom line: The more money you make the larger your share of the supporting the system that has helped/let you make all that money.Oh, and please take your anecdotal info and sit with it beside your fire, but don’t make ideologically driven arguments in public spaces with it.Come on now!Most people who are in the top incomes tend, by the vast majority, to be folks born in those income levels (again keep your anecdotal evidence to yourself, I simply don’t care about it because it doesn’t stack up to statistical data).Those born into families with a lot cultural and economic capital tend to maintain there standard of living or gain both. Those born into families without lots of education or money tend to have trouble significantly changing their social status.

“Let’s have an honest discussion about taxes, based on the economic facts before us, and without the judgment, posturing, and prose that seems to have dominated this conversation . . .”That’s the trick, isn’t it? We’ve had none from the wealthy and little from the politicians to date. Honesty might at least start by admitting that your brother-in-law gets the maximum benefit of a tax cut on the first $250,000 earned, along with Bill and Warren. If that seems like too little to count, it’s only because they have so much more than that.

Your essay makes an important point. My brother-in-law is very much like your own: an auto mechanic who rises at 4 a.m. to get to his shop and voted most popular in his community as well. I work in a private secondary school in a wealthy area of our city, and I am frequently astounded by the stories of our “top 1%” parents’: their backgrounds, the heart-rending sacrifices they have made along the way, their over-whelmning generous personal and financial contributions to the community and non-profits. The personal anecdote may not qualify in a journal as a scientific research survey, but it puts a face on people whom we do not know personally and reminds us that we cannot judge the integrity or heart of others by their income or their address.

I don’t understand the acerbic criticism directed at hard working ordinary people. I and many of my colleagues in higher education have similar stories about how we benefited not only from our own efforts to work our way through college but those of our families. My father, the youngest of 11 children born to a poor farmer, worked his way through college with a little help from older siblings. All the brothers and sisters worked to help the eldest and then each in turn helped the other. My husband’s family’s experience was similar. While both my husband and I worked hard, neither of us experienced the hardship, sacrifice and, yes, discrimination our parents experienced. No one belongs to a country club or is featured in society pages, but our families include small business people and professionals who not only pay higher taxes, but give generously to their communities. Check out the IRS table–they’re definitely paying a larger share of taxes already!Can we do more to lift “every boat’? Of course. But demonizing those who have already lifted their own boat hardly seems to be the correct course.

Folks,There are some major misconceptions here about linking the top 1% in our country (a buzzword poorly conceived to refer to elites that seem to have no names). First, using income as a measure is flawed in some respect without an historical sense (not referring to CEO vs. Worker differentials in pay). It is less relevant in a consumer society where we draw the line the at income and top 1% since the costs of healthcare, college tuition and middle class entry are inherently inflated (see Elizabeth Warren’s Two Income Trap, 2003). Also, comparisons of income create divisions among and between. We all can agree that households making $100K look very different from each other based on the community, access to resources based on scarcity and abundance, debt and family financial commitments. I suspect that very few of us can be out into the $100K household box and tolerate others’ making assumptions and financial judgements about how we live. This is why income and wealth should be distinguished in this article.So, wealth is a better indicator of the top %1… We should be looking at all those accounts at certain levels. We should also be re-considering income tax rates based on liquid assets not annual income (its how much they keep not make that is important):$500K Net worth in liquid assets — 30% tax bracket(This isn’t that much money to retire on providing an income barely above poverty measures for one person where %5 cash flow would yield $25K per annum; hoping that the 500K stays in tact)This is lower middle class retirement income and has increasingly become the case for many retirees after the financial crisis 2008$1M Net worth in liquid assets —– 35% tax bracket(This is where the middle class used to be where retirement of $50K per annum fit with personal savings and allowed for retirees to maintain their lifestyle without getting into their principle) This group of people should be able (due to the recent eras estate tax laws) pass these assets on to their heirs without much taxation….$2M Net Worth in liquid assets —– 37.5% tax bracketNow we are in the spaces where the American demographics are shrinking the most. 2 million dollars somewhat saefly provides for $100K-120K lifestyle but is still subject to some risk of erosion. People who have accumulated these assets can should be able to live on 9-10K per month, but often feel that they have worked so hard to get to this place that they should be entitled to all of the benefits that very wealthy people… Keep with the Jones’ is more prevalent here versus knowing that their retirement future is pretty bright provided there is not some major financial calamity..$5M Net Worth in liquid assets —– 40% tax rateFor every senator who went throught the lobbyist revolving door or for every business man who painstakingly built up a business based on a consumer society’s penchant for debt and “having things”, there should be a major difference in tax rates for people who have 5 million dollars liquid and 500K. Their ability to buy influence, diminish harm to themselves/family through having access to resources and connections, and the freedom to bypass rules are all reasons for a higher tax rate. Also, this is where the estate tax should kick in: 45% for this group10M Net Worth in Liquid Assets ——- 45% tax rate 20M Net Worth in Liquid Assets ——- 50% tax rateAt a time when it has been discovered that the rich and greedy have offshored over 58,000 accounts overseas to avoid taxation, re-capturing the wealth that has been take from this economy over the last 25 years is really important to maintain the social fabric where the abyss between the haves and have nots has reached record levels…. By taxing the top 1% of asset bases at 40-50%, their net worths grow at a slower pace and the rest of us claw back what has been taken away through regulatory, judicial and statutorial power associated with the banking, pharmaceutical-healthcare, defense, media, technology and energy industries.Income is not the most important measure since it is often transitory, short-term and not encompassing the full picture of how our %1 really own in this society… Let’s not get caught up in the ephemeral at the expense of what is important for the middle class. Tax rates have gone up among the middle class if you were a consumer of healthcare, higher education and middle class access. Let’s make it more affordable!

This piece is such a pile of right-wing ideological garbage! Look at this paragraph: “Many people in the top 1 percent got there as a result of hard work, personal sacrifice, and some wise decisions along the way.” Most did not. And very few of the top 1% are the blue-collar types glorified in this piece. Most got there, at least in part, by accident of birth. “Whether it happens now or a few years from now, upper-income Americans are going to pay more tax. But would it be so hard for us to treat them like decent Americans, thank them for their hard work and generosity, and make them feel like we appreciate what they are doing to help the economy?”Why should we thank those who pay higher taxes for their generosity? Paying taxes is not a virtue: it is a duty; and it is not a symbol of generosity. Why is this so difficult to understand? “The great thing about America is that any person can do exactly what my brother-in-law did and make a better life for himself and his family.” Yeah, the old saw of the American Dream: everyone can be successful. What this narrative omits is that we do not all have equal opportunities and that opportunities are skewed toward the wealthy. Why not pay extra taxes for this privilege? After all, being born in a wealthy or even upper-middle class family is a pure accident. It’s just luck, and there is good reason to distribute that luck a bit more evenly, which is we need a more progressive tax system.

So would DAJ and others be willing to not raise taxes on these $250K families (again remember that the higher rate isn’t on all of their income, just the amount over $250K), but raise them even higher on the really rich–say a 40 percent rate for the millionaires? And does she think that Republicans in Congress would support that? Or is this just a use of the people like her admirable brother-in-law to protect the wealth of the super rich? I don’t doubt that DAJ is sincere here but her party uses this type of case to defend the super rich at the expense of everyone else. We had top rates of over 90% under JFK (with good economic growth and low inflation), and the top rate under Reagan was above 50 percent in all but one year.Oh, and DAJ repeats the falsehood that the top one percent “pay 70 percent of all taxes collected.” Not true, as has been pointed out many, many times. The top one percent hold about 22.2 percent of total U.S. income and they pay 23 percent of total taxes–federal, state, sales, property, etc. Here’s the information, DAJ:http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdfBut do conservatives support higher taxes on the super rich so that people like DAJ’s brother-in-law won’t have to pay higher taxes? Haven’t heard that offer from any Republican yet.

@ molly1I hear your concern about women. I too am concerned about historically discriminated populations. In fact, bank loans were unavailable to many groups that were not white, privileged and male during this time (not until late 60′s were they allowed access to loans and financial discrimination exists today.) However, this is not the central issue presently being discussed.The issue deals with the larger economic structure (neoliberal) that fosters disparities between people who have and protect their assets (and large incomes) and the have nots who have increasingly been pushed into systems of predation, poverty and pay-to-play model of indebtedness. This affects women disproportionately as well as minority groups. The old saying that when the country is in recession, these groups are experiencing a depression.Increasing the Tax rates (provide the government collects them fairly and is able to function as a re-distributor. This re-distribution of wealth worked previously at another time in history (the 30′s) precisely because power had been consolidated into an Oligarcy of concentrated economic influence infecting all systems (government, corporate, families and communities). This period from the early 30′s into the early 70′s was called the “golden period” of economic growth. This is where spending projects created employment, national park system, national highways and public space that we could enjoy en masse. The fact that this growth was primarily experience by white middle and upper class families is more about our cultural-structural avenues for advancement in a society previously dominated by wealthy white men. The economics (Keynesian) behind the transformation of the US economy still is pertinent today (to create a more egalitarian society). The hope is that we merge what we have learned about equality and civil rights with the economic policies that fit the rejection of the current social darwinistic tax system…. The failure of the economy should not be laid at the feet of labor here, since those who hold the most power abused the system and profited handsomely. The failure of this system has been the misallocation of capital into wars, intricate deceptions of financial instruments, and the harnessing of natural resources creating oil disasters, climate change and short term profits at the expense of long term humanity…In ending, your argument about women who are deciding to cut back on work because of taxes is a canard. This society is splitting and bifurcating into professions that are either really well paid (IT Specialist, Physican, corporate Executive) moderately paid (public sector jobs) and poorly compensated (service, teaching, social work). Many deciding to cut back on work do so not because of taxation, but because of the many complexities of jobs and their corresponding incomes are not sustainable for families (of which taxes are just one small minute part). This does not implicate taxes as much as it does where capital wishes to place emphasis and interest. As someone who cares greatly about equality, the tax issue is easily inflated into an abyss of self-interest versus a true concern for disparities among women and minority groups

molly 1 misquotes:”I keep seeing support of the idea of going back to a 90% marginal tax rate “as it was under JFK.” “I wasn’t endorsing that. I was simply pointing out that we have had economic prosperity with much higher marginal tax rates on the wealthy. There is no empirical link between macroeconomic performance and the top marginal rate on the wealthy. That’s all. Not saying that 90 percent is a good idea. But we can have a much higher rate on the wealthiest with no economic harm, and some gain against the deficit and debt, which all good conservatives claim to care about.

Hmm …I agree with major point of article: it is not helpful, and probably harmful, to vilify top 1% of income.I also don’t have any problem – from a fairness perspective – to ask those with more to contribute more.When the poverty level is in the $20K range, and median (half-above/half-below) income is somewhere in the $30s or $40s for individuals, and somewhere between $50-75 for households, depending on exactly how one is calculating, I don’t have any problem saying someone earning more than $100,000 is somewhere in the ‘upper’ distribution of income – one can quibble about ‘upper’ middle-class, or ‘upper’ class, but they aren’t very meaningful for me from a fairness perspective. If a ‘median’ household can get by on something less than $75K, those getting more than $100K can’t have much to complain about – legitimately, that is (freedom of speech allows us to complain about any thing & every thing … )All that said, I like #11 comment – wealth is equally important, and I actually like the categories too.Bottom line for me: no one ‘deserves’ a particular income or particular level of wealth; there is no particular ethical or moral value attached to how much one does, or does not, earn & accumulate – there is to how one gets it, and how one distributes it; the real test is how well one can spend, or give away, that wealth. I take to heart the wisdom given to the rich young man who followed all the commandments; what else could he do? He could give his wealth away … (Unlike emperors of old, I don’t believe you can take it with you, and you shouldn’t try … )