Socialist Security #1

[C. Petersen]

> 
> >Any good guesses out there on the number of Americans with incomes of
> >over $68,400 a year.  Number of households with incomes of over $68,400
> >a year.  Percentage of  civilian workforce with incomes of over $68,400
> >a year; based on a workforce of ____(what number) and why.
> 
> Max's colleagues at EPI say that the 90th percentile of the wage
> distribution earned $24.73 in the first half of this year (about $21 for
> women and $27 for men). $68,400 works out to an hourly of almost $33, or
> 33% above the 90th percentile. So I'd say we're talking about the top 5-7%
> of workers. There's a nifty chart of real earnings from 1973-98 for men and
> women at the 1st, 5th, and 9th deciles in LBO #84, now on press. Nice
> recent wage gains, led by the bottom, but there's a long way to go.

George Will came out with a statistic in his column recently where he was
talking about how prosperous everyone is, that the average household
income is about $55,000, which seemed super high. There must be a large
gap between that and the median. The average house price in the Seattle
area went up $40,000 in *one* year, and an article in the paper stated
that it would require a household income of $70,000 to purchase the
average house if house payments were to be the standard 25% of income, but
they quote a similar statistic about how high the average household income
is these days, so it was no real problem after all.