We hear a lot of this from certain political campaigns. No, I don't want this to become a political ideological blog or article.
But who ARE "the rich"? Who ARE the 1%?
This link is for Office of the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration. Do you know who an actuary is? They're an accountant with less personality! No seriously - they're the people who ONLY care about the numbers - no agenda.
This link shows the wage statistics for a given year. The link is already set up for 2018:
What incomes make up the top 1%?
Scroll down the "percent of total wage earners" and look for 99.
That's $300,000+ of annual income.
What incomes make up the top 5%?
Scroll down the "percent of total wage earners" and look for 95.
That's $140,000+ of annual income. Note: See that pic of AOC above? Her congressional salary is $174,000 a year. According to her own statements and assertions, she is part of the problem!
What incomes make up the top 10%?
Scroll down the "percent of total wage earners" and look for 90.
That's $100,000+ of annual income.
How many people are in that $100,000+ category? You have to add up ALL the numbers to determine how many people fit that income.
Could that be YOU... and you didn't know it?
This information is not adjusted for family size, cost of living, or anything else. Just gross income.
If you are living in a nice home, married, with two children... and you earn $140,000+... do you FEEL rich? I bet you don't. You're comfortable enough. But give it time... you may be a TARGET of some of these "tax the rich" campaigns... because, according to the Office of the Chief Actuary... you ARE rich... and be labeled "the problem".
This paragraph is also interesting: The "raw" average wage, computed as net compensation divided by the number of wage earners, is $8,383,540,628,515.51 divided by 167,669,326, or $50,000.44. Based on data in the table below, about 67.4 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the $50,000.44 raw average wage. By definition, 50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage, which is estimated to be $32,838.05 for 2018.
If you are earning above the median wage... you may be a target of some of these campaigns.
Just something to think about.
This video was done in 2012, but Tony Robbins takes a non-partisan approach to looking at paying off the National Debt back then (when it was 'just' $15 Trillion).
Definitely worth watching: