Are you in the 1%

znovkovic wrote:

AspenValley wrote: I wish I could find it but the other day I saw a chart that showed a breakdown of how the 1% earned their money. What really struck me is that only about 2% were entrepreuners. The vast majority were corporate and fiancial top execs, with a sprinkling of high-earning doctors and lawyers.

I think that's interesting, as well as suggestive.

Can you recall where you may have seen or found the data? Did you do a search under something, because it does have my interest now that we are all getting knee deep into the education side of things....

This doesn't seem to match what AV saw, but I've seen this report in several places. It's based on a 2005 study but still shows up in current articles.

The biggest group of professions in the top 1% are executives, manages, and supervisors in non-financial industries who account for 31% of the top 1%.

Next is Medical at 15.7%

Financial professions come in 3rd at 13.9% (the study excluded capital gains for some unknown reason)

Next are:

Lawyers, 8.4%

Computer, math, engineering, technical (non-finance), 4.6%

Not working or deceased, 4.3% (I guess it's from investment income from a large savings account? Don't get it if cap gains are excluded)

Skilled sales (except finance), 4.2%

Blue collar or miscellaneous service, 3.8%

Real estate, 3.2%

Business operations (non-finance), 3%

Entrepreneur not elsewhere classified, 2.3%

Professors and scientists, 1.8%

Arts, media, sports, 1.6%

and more, each less than 1%...

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/the-top-1-executives-doctors-and-bankers/

That's pretty close to what I saw. The largest number are corporate and financial execs and some high paid doctors and lawyers. Only 2.3% are entrepreuners.

Well, if only 2.3% of the top 1% are entrepreuners, on the face of it doesn't that seem to go against those who claim an income tax increase for the top 1% would kill jobs?

The top 31% appear to be mainly people who work for companies, so unless I'm missing something I don't see how a tax increase on them (or the 13.9% in financial industries) would kill job hiring.

However, my guess is most of the medical people (15.7%) and lawyers (8.4%) also own their business and are in effect entrepreuners as well. I'm assuming they'd make a lot more owning their business rather than working for someone else, and thus more likely to be in the top 1%.