[roenxi]

That article is saying top 1% income in the US is numbers higher than $400k! The median was something like $50k or $80k last time I checked. Those aren't normal workers, those are exactly there sort of people who are seen as not contributing their fair share. They physically can't be working harder than a median worker but they're getting multiples of the salary.

If someone is going to be supporting society, they are the people with the means.

[tomnipotent]

> Those aren't normal workers

What's your definition of a normal worker? Lawyers, doctors, dentists, pilots, architects and programmers sound like normal workers to me.

This is still millions of people, and I imagine they would think they're normal workers, too. But Fortune 500 CEOs? Well, there's only... 500. Even the combined payroll of the MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLS is less than 10,000 professional athletes where median pay is $860k, $1.15M, and $8.3M for the NFL, MLB, and NBA respectively.

[aiisjustanif]

> What's your definition of a normal worker? Lawyers, doctors, dentists, pilots, architects and programmers sound like normal workers to me. Please stop acting like these professions average at the 1% threshold. EPI put the top 1% at $737,697 in 2019 and the top 5% at $309,348 [1].

Average Income of those normal workers [2]:

* Lawyer: $148,910

* Dentists (across all specialities): $186,300

* Physicians (across all specialties): $218,850

* Architects: $89,470

* Software engineers (across all specialties): $109,950

* All computer and math specialties: $96,770

* Pilots (All specialties): $163,480 [3]

So these “Normal people” are not even apart of the discussion stop making it seem like all these professions seem like they are in the top 1%. It’s paint a really false picture that skews the conversation at large.

1. https://www.epi.org/blog/top-1-0-of-earners-see-wages-up-157...

2. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#23-0000

3. I think that number might miss out on all the burn out low level contract airline pilots that make peanuts.

[ABCLAW]

>What's your definition of a normal worker? Lawyers, doctors, dentists, pilots, architects and programmers sound like normal workers to me.

We're not. Lawyer income is not on a normal distribution.

People making >400k a year are owners/partners in a successful firm. Most of these people work hard, yes, but they make their big dollars off leverage; the amount of margin they can accrue from billing out the work of lower ranked lawyers on files they've brought in. Some don't even do legal work. It's very tough to lump these guys in with 'normal workers'.

For the people doing low-cost-jurisdiction bulk lawyer work, they make closer to 25-35$/hr as contractors. Which is almost an order of magnitude less. These are normal workers.

[roenxi]

I'm going to point at the median worker, they're pretty normal.

All the people you're listing aren't necessarily normal workers - observe that some of them are part of the much-vaunted 1%.

I don't really understand the mindset that people are grumpy about the 1% and then interpret that as "oh really they're on the side of the 1% they mean the 0.1%". If anything, it might be the other way around and they mean the 10%.

The argument is there need to be more transfer payments. A mindset that CEOs need to pay but not fabulously wealthy doctors/dentists/programmers is a mystery to me. What even is the argument?

These are people who either need to work for 2 years (pre-tax) to live comfortably for a decade or they're squandering their earnings. They are outrageously wealthy.

[Siira]

400K is not real rich territory. Wealth follows a power law.

[crispyambulance]

If you look at the net worth of people who make ~400K/year in their jobs, it has a huge variation.

This is because some of them launched themselves into a high-earning job and others were born into significant generational wealth. Most people who are born into serious wealth aren't going to stay long (if ever at all) in a sub-100K salary grind regardless of talent and skills.

Incidentally, I happen to know that a good number of the people that get busted for insider trading are highly compensated finance folks that make ~400K. They see their peers with dynastic wealth and the accompanying toys, get envious, and try taking "short cuts".

[Fricken]

The people who have the means have the means because society supports them.