What Percent Are You? | Hacker News Reader

What Percent Are You?

nytimes.com

26 pointsuptown17 comments

Household income is a poor measure in my opinion. If I happen to live with a roommate who also earns the same as me, am I suddendly twice as wealthy? Of course not.

As the majority of households have two main income earners, and I live on my own, it is wrong to compare my income against that of a married couple. I would be much more interested to compare where my earnings are against individuals, not households.

Are you sure that the "majority of households have two main income earners"? I don't have data but most of the families I know are quite the opposite -- a divorced couple with kids maintaining two separate households, or a single mom/dad receiving no child support (for whatever reason).

More accurately, this should be called "what percentile are you?"

That doesn't match the current marketing terminology. This is meant to be topical, not strictly informational, though I think it succeeds as both.

1% all over USA except a few spots in NY (2%) :(

/me needs additional greed or the exchange rate of a few months ago for a better rating.

Edit: for those of you who were, like me, a bit confused about the purpose of the whole exercise: There's a related article at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/business/the-1-percent-pai...

Did you zoom in to see your percent in DC? Wealthy area there, might not be the 1%...

All I can see there is Top 1% from $513,000

Zoom in and check out Stamford, CT.

Yes, as I said above, 2%

It doesn't seem like the areas are created equal; I'd expect a few more hotspots elsewhere (California), but so far I haven't found much, but then again "Data not available for metropolitan areas with fewer than 50,000 households."

The color-coding on this map was an interesting choice. Bright, stop-sign red is used for people whose income is in the top 1%. I almost felt as if being in the top 1% was a bad thing...

Why focus on income? It can so fleeting.

I cashed out a bunch of options last year that put me in into seven figures for ONE YEAR. Next year I'll be making no salary since I "retired" because of my windfall.

I'm way better off than I was when I was making a low six figure salary, but by this measure I'll be worse off.

People need to remember that salaries and wealth are dynamic. Most of the people in the 1% weren't there 10 years ago and certainly won't be there in 10 years.

I don't understand your reasoning that they won't be there in 10 years. Money opens doors for you to make more money and to give your kids more opportunities. Unless you assume that people are essentially all addicted to gambling.

I shouldn't have said "most". It's more like 34% of the top 20% fall to a lower quintile over six years according to a Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis study of households from 1002 to 2007. (http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr3411.pdf) I should have looked this up instead of just trusting my memory.

Still pretty significant.

Bottom 20% in Boston. Whoo!

If you live in Alaska or Hawaii, we're unsure which percentile you're in. How much did you spend on flights and shipping charges last year?

This isn't really a good measure. Given the same income, a single person is much better off than a family of 5.

24% in my area.

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