Purely anecdotally, but I can think of many friends and relatives who have gone to burning man in the past and are nowhere near the top 2-5%. Last I checked, my dear sister (a self described burner) is living out of a van and selling jewelry at concerts/shows to make a small income.

Also anecdotally, those same burners have mentioned that they are less and less interested in going to burning man based on their recent (negative) experiences in the last 1-2 years and are doing more burner-like things locally.

Your perception is wrong. Every year they do a census. Of the people who filled out the survey most earn under 100k a year, with the average being around $40k. To be 5% of the US you need to be earning 188k a year.

http://feralgraphing.blogspot.com/2011/08/income-distributio... http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-p...

Yes. Anecdotally, the people I know of who do go to Burning Man are either techies or lawyers with upper-middle class income with liberal/progressive ideas or grad students whose socio-economic circumstances are well off enough to allow them to pursue graduate education in the first place.