3

What percent are you, really?

Rob Walker

To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.

Get Adobe Flash player

Kai Ryssdal: Los Angeles is -- as of this moment -- still occupied. City officials served protesters with an eviction notice this weekend, but the tents remain on the south lawn of City Hall and the occupiers have asked the courts to step in.

Commentator Rob Walker has a question for the movement.


Rob Walker: We've heard the chant for months now: "We are the 99 percent!" Ever wonder what's the most money you could make, and still honestly join in? Maybe that sounds flippant. But one of the striking things about picking on "the one percent" is that it gets very numerically specific about a longstanding American paradox.

On the one hand, material success as an admirable achievement and just reward for hard-working strivers is an idea as old as Horatio Alger and as current as Jay-Z. Even those of us who don't admire Donald Trump -- and apparently, people do -- would like to make more money next year than we did last year.

But, railing about immoral fat cats is as old as the Gilded Age, and as current as celebrity chef Mario Batali slamming Wall Street bankers, complete with allusions to Hitler and Stalin. He later apologized, but many responded by calling Batali a fat cat. "Good luck with your $300 white truffle tasting menu among the 99 percent," one critic tweeted.

Which brings us back to the idea of applying hard numbers to the question: How rich is too rich? Happily the Wall Street Journal has published a "What Percent Are You?" online tool.

Credit: Wall Street Journal

It says an annual salary of more than $506,000 lands you in the top 1 percent. So you could, in theory, make up to $506,000 a year, which is probably enough to swing dinner at a Batali restaurant, and still be part of the 99 percent.

This, I suggest, is the new American Dream sweet spot: the bottom half of the top 2 percent. The good news for me at least is that there is some -- OK, lots of -- breathing room between between my current income and the ceiling on my right to pillory the elite. So I remain motivated to make more money next year.

Naysayers might counter that household wealth is actually the relevant number here, but that's harder to parse. Let's stick with a benchmark based on one number and a click. When the revolution comes, I'm sure they'll use this calculator.


Ryssdal: Rob Walker is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and Design Observer. You can write us regardless of what percent you find yourself in.

SaminTexas's picture
SaminTexas - Nov 30, 2011

Rob Walker's trite commentary makes me want to ask him in return: would you be happier if they said "We are the 98%?" Rob Walker's commentary, unless he's trying to become a comedian (in which case he needs work on his material), is neither incisive, informative, or even clever.

jhwend's picture
jhwend - Nov 30, 2011

The Occupy movement has clarified my understanding of a problem that may not be as clear to the members of the movement itself. The issue for me isn't that so much wealth has been accumulated in so few hands. The problem wealth creates is the need of those with great wealth to influence the institutions of society so that they are protected — and enabled to accumulate even greater wealth than any person or family needs to live quite comfortably.
I've come to respect any movement that recognizes the potential for overreaching — especially by government — because of the influence of great wealth. If our government overreaches, it ought to do so because of the consent of the people through their votes and ideas, not because of contributions to influence elected officials. Our democratic processes are being corrupted by money to such an extent that we no longer reason with one another.

dmulliga's picture
dmulliga - Nov 30, 2011

Well, having used your tool, I am now depressed about just how far short I am from being in the sweet spot. But I still refuse on principle, to be one of the obnoxious Whiny One Per Cent. Bashing the rich simply doesn't help any of us; if any one can be held at fault for the present state of affairs, then we are all at fault. Our time and attention is better spent actually doing something to work our way out of the present mess. And believe we will.