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By The Numbers

Twitter Chat Roundup: Do you tell people how much you make?

John Ketchum Jan 24, 2014

Earlier this week we aired a report on the “Stealthy Wealthy” – people who have a lot of money, but don’t necessarily want you to know about it.   Reporter Sean Cole’s piece raised some good points:  like the fact that a lot of these folks didn’t know they were inheriting large sums of money.

 In my adventures with the stealthy wealthy, I noticed a few commonalities among the folks I interviewed. For instance, none of them seemed to know the money was coming to them until it did, and all of them were thrown by it, to one degree or another. Probably the most unsettled among them was Burke Stansbury. He’s a political activist living in Seattle with his wife and son. He remembers the day his dad handed him a four-page printout of his investments, and trust fund, etc. 

“I laughed,” Burke told me, “More than anything it struck me as totally ridiculous that I would have that kind of money. The absurdity of why I, of all people, should have a million dollars coming to me, it struck me. Like I had never done anything to deserve that money.”

The story got us thinking: Do the non-rich feel comfortable telling people how much money they have?

On Twitter, the majority of respondents said they prefer not to share their net-worth out of embarrasment.  Some said they work hard to earn what they do, and they’re happy to share the amount.  Others said that sharing income is awkward, whether you’re rich or poor.  

Here are some of the most interesting responses we received:

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