who is rich?
Nov. 19th, 2010 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI had a long conversation today with one of my brokers. It turns out we actually agree on some things that are believed to be wildly controversial (means testing on social security benefits, removing the income cap on contributions to social security), that heartens me about the possibility of making sure important safety net programs are preserved to be around for future generations.
But along the way, we went down a little rat hole about whether or not people making $250,000 a year can be considered rich. One of T.'s arguments was that people who make that amount of money, but who live in an expensive place -- like, say, New York -- can't be considered to be rich because their cost of living is so high.
Let's think about that with a little bit of readily accessible data.
I pulled this out of a note in a wikipedia entry about New York City, subhead Demographics.
http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/SamRoberts4Sep05.htm
That's someone's copy of a New York Times article from September 4, 2005, titled "In Manhattan, Poor Make 2 cents for Each Dollar to the Rich".
Here are the relevant bits of information:
"The lowest-income census tract in the city is a triangular patch of East Harlem east of First Avenue and north of East 119th Street, where, despite a hint of gentrification in a renovated brownstone or two, the neighborhood is dominated by the mammoth though generally well-tended public housing project called the Wagner Houses. The median household income there is $9,320, most of the residents are black or Hispanic and do not have high school degrees, 56 percent live below the poverty level and about one in 10 are foreign born."
and
"Manhattan's highest-income census tract is a six-square-block rectangle bounded by Fifth and Park Avenues and East 56th and 59th Streets. The median household income in this mostly commercial section of East Midtown is $188,697 (average family income is $875,267); none of the residents identified themselves as black; nearly one-third have advanced degrees and more than one in three are foreign born. Even there, though, the poverty rate is 16 percent."
I think that if you make substantially (honestly? Don't _you_ think that over $60,000 is substantially?) more than the median income in the _richest_ census tract in New York City (particularly since we may well be comparing apples to oranges, in that median income in these statistics may or may not be the same as AGI, which is what the $250K thing is all about), you might qualify as rich. Don't you?
Sure. _Average_ family income in that tract is much, much, much higher, because even in that richest census tract, there are a small number of families who have fantastically more money than the rest of the rich people. But that doesn't change things. If you've got -- call it 30% more money -- than half of the other families in the _richest census tract in NYC_, you are probably rich.
I am _so_ going to write that Memo to Rich People.
But along the way, we went down a little rat hole about whether or not people making $250,000 a year can be considered rich. One of T.'s arguments was that people who make that amount of money, but who live in an expensive place -- like, say, New York -- can't be considered to be rich because their cost of living is so high.
Let's think about that with a little bit of readily accessible data.
I pulled this out of a note in a wikipedia entry about New York City, subhead Demographics.
http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/SamRoberts4Sep05.htm
That's someone's copy of a New York Times article from September 4, 2005, titled "In Manhattan, Poor Make 2 cents for Each Dollar to the Rich".
Here are the relevant bits of information:
"The lowest-income census tract in the city is a triangular patch of East Harlem east of First Avenue and north of East 119th Street, where, despite a hint of gentrification in a renovated brownstone or two, the neighborhood is dominated by the mammoth though generally well-tended public housing project called the Wagner Houses. The median household income there is $9,320, most of the residents are black or Hispanic and do not have high school degrees, 56 percent live below the poverty level and about one in 10 are foreign born."
and
"Manhattan's highest-income census tract is a six-square-block rectangle bounded by Fifth and Park Avenues and East 56th and 59th Streets. The median household income in this mostly commercial section of East Midtown is $188,697 (average family income is $875,267); none of the residents identified themselves as black; nearly one-third have advanced degrees and more than one in three are foreign born. Even there, though, the poverty rate is 16 percent."
I think that if you make substantially (honestly? Don't _you_ think that over $60,000 is substantially?) more than the median income in the _richest_ census tract in New York City (particularly since we may well be comparing apples to oranges, in that median income in these statistics may or may not be the same as AGI, which is what the $250K thing is all about), you might qualify as rich. Don't you?
Sure. _Average_ family income in that tract is much, much, much higher, because even in that richest census tract, there are a small number of families who have fantastically more money than the rest of the rich people. But that doesn't change things. If you've got -- call it 30% more money -- than half of the other families in the _richest census tract in NYC_, you are probably rich.
I am _so_ going to write that Memo to Rich People.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-20 06:13 am (UTC)definition of poverty level
Date: 2010-11-20 02:39 pm (UTC)http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/thresh05.html
The poverty threshold for the presumably relevant year (2005) for a family of 1 over the age of 65 (these are projects in NYC, and there is a cliche about projects in NYC and it involves very poor elderly women, often of color) is: 9,367.
This is, in fact, part of why I consider it obscene for people who have an AGI above $250K to be saying they are not rich.
Wagner Houses
Date: 2010-11-20 02:49 pm (UTC)"It has 5,290 residents who live in 2,154 apartments."
This implies an average household size of slightly more than 2.
I think it is possible to make sense of these data points: the area (which may or may not coincide with the census tract) has a quarter of its population in public housing, and the biggest population group in the area is (or was until it started gentrifying) Puerto Rican.
Next up: what _is_ a "household" for census purposes?
household
Date: 2010-11-20 02:53 pm (UTC)Zipcode 10035 is particularly interesting when you look at the income by age.
ETA: That's the right zipcode for Wagner. There's apparently some illegal subletting going on in public housing. Scandals I would never otherwise have heard about ...
ETAYA: Household is a physical location that isn't group housing, so it would include two families living together. I'm thinking the right explanation on the median income 9K/56% below poverty level is a whole lot of elderly black women living alone in public housing, possibly with extended family who come and go but don't actually "live" there for census purposes, surrounded by a bunch of other poor families in rental units who aren't _that_ low income.
Re: household
Date: 2010-11-20 08:14 pm (UTC)Re: household
Date: 2010-11-20 11:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-21 03:32 am (UTC)