jobs

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri May 19 09:35:41 PDT 2000


Carrol Cox wrote:


>In 1969 #25,000 a year virtually put one in the margins of the
>ruling class. I would like to see a chart of household incomes
>more finely divided than by quintiles. Just what is the level at
>which one is living off the labor of others? My daughter (a
>computer consultant) describes her salary as obscene (and her
>husband, also a computer consulatant, has incorporated himself).
>So they are at that level. But where (even crudely) is the dividing
>line? I would assume, especially in a high cost area, that it is
>well above $55,000.

The average income of the top 20% of households in 1998 was $127,529; that of the top 5%, 222,283. That implies an average of 127,529 for the next 15%. The boundary between the fourth & fifth quintiles is at $75,000.

Here are the average hourly earnings by decile (I think the numbers are at the top of the decile, e.g. "1" would mean at the 10th percentile, etc., and not averages) in mid-1999. The panel below the hourly numbers is how those would translate into yearly earnings (at 2000 hours/year). That's not really fair, since the hourly figures are for all workers, and not year-round, full-time workers, but hey, it's close enough for the internet.

all female male hourly

1 6.05 5.77 6.59

2 7.35 6.83 8.12

3 8.72 7.89 9.85

4 10.10 9.05 11.50

5 11.87 10.31 13.40

6 13.93 12.03 15.63

7 16.45 14.30 18.42

8 19.93 17.40 22.23

9 26.05 22.63 29.17

yearly

1 12,092 11,547 13,177

2 14,709 13,663 16,247

3 17,432 15,781 19,694

4 20,203 18,109 23,000

5 23,747 20,617 26,805

6 27,866 24,066 31,270

7 32,909 28,600 36,848

8 39,855 34,804 44,453

9 52,095 45,255 58,340

Doug



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