We’re referring to the same report and thanks for being rigorous on this. I certainly wouldn’t want to oversimplify.

Using self-identified rich to derive an income baseline for rich still means “rich” is self-identified, no? It still puts us in the 1-2% range.

I suggest that a measurable definition of rich should be those who are clearly above the vast majority of (say) incomes. Being richer than 80% or 90% of the population makes one closer to the top than the middle, so that seems like a better definition of “rich”. Agree that it is necessarily arbitrary, but I think such a definition is pretty conservative.

Regarding the 90%, it’s from this line:

> about 9 out of 10 respondents identified as being in one of the three parts of the middle class

But re-reading, yes you’re right that the lower bound is not self-identified. But the author’s using the $30K number (from the poverty line) puts us at around the 5th percentile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...

…which effectively puts the “middle” classes at 90% of the population.

Again, thanks for the rigor and let me know if I have misread.