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Income Upshot

Income Upshot: Homer Simpson edition

Jolie Myers Sep 12, 2013

Sure, you could enter your own income into our Income Upshot data tool. But we’ve got a few ideas as well.

Like… Homer Simpson? Yup. You’ll recall that Homer works at a power plant in Springfield, Oregon. Nuclear technicians make a median income of $69,056 a year, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  

Income Upshot:
How people at different incomes live, work and play. A new data interactive from Marketplace’s Wealth & Poverty Desk. Try the interactive

And when we enter Homer into our Income Upshot tool, we find that he makes over $33,000 a year more than the median income in Springfield. We also know that people at his income are mostly married, they like dogs, they own their homes, they prefer a frosty cold one to a stem of red and they buy more small SUVs than any other cars.

I’d say we’re pretty dead on: Marge, Santa’s Little Helper, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Duff Beer and this car:

Station wagons are just small SUVs, right?

Now that we’ve got everyone’s favorite cartoon dad out of the way, try out the following public figures and pop culture creations:

  • Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Neb.
  • Max Black, one of the “2 Broke Girls,” the CBS sitcom about diner waitresses in Brooklyn, N.Y.
  • Jamie Dimon, CEO of Wall Street bank JPMorgan Chase in Manhattan, N.Y.
  • Marge Gunderson, police chief in Brainerd, Minn., in the film “Fargo”
  • Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!, who lives in Palo Alto, Calif.
  • Olivia Pope, the public relations maven in ABC’s political thriller, “Scandal”

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