At what income is an American considered "rich"?

Question

Does anyone know of an "official" formula for determining whether someone could consider themselves monetarily rich? Of course, all things are relative to region and personal choices; for instance, $100K annual is not going to be the same in L.A. California as opposed to Gary Indiana. My question is more in regards to what seems like an endless barrage of accusations of wealth directed towards what I would consider to be middle-class. I typically shrug this off as populist newspeak, but it has gotten me to wondering where the line of middle-class ends and "rich" begins.

Answer 1

According to the US Census Bureau the following are income Quintiles (each is 20% of the population)

Bottom 20%:
$0 - 17,984
(3.4% of the income)

Lower Middle 20%:
$17,985 - 34,000
(8.7% of the income)

Middle 20%
$34,001 - 54,453
(14.8% of the income)

Upper Middle 20%
$54,454 - 86,867
(23.4% of the income)

Top 20%
$86,867 - No limit
(49.8% of the income)

Also interesting is the following statistic:
Top 5%
$154,120 - No limit
(21.4% of the income)

Of course, everyone in the US thinks that they are middle class.
I have also noticed that the two political parties define middle class Americans differently.
Republicans are referring to College educated, professionals of the middle and upper middle quintiles.
Democrats are referring to High School educated, working class people of the lower middle and middle quintiles.

Answer 2

The line is pretty fuzzy, but probably won't be for long. As the gap between rich and poor increases and the middle class vanishes it will be easier to see who's a have and who's a have-not.

As you point out, where you live is part of the equation. I have a relative in California who is, technically, a millionaire and lives in a $600,000 house, but that house far smaller than mine. I paid less than 1/3 of that for my house and it is 3 times as large because I live in a part of the country where costs of living are much lower. I make a decent salary, but if I went to California I"d have a hard time getting by.

Economists have to take all that kind of stuff into account when determining poverty levels.

Here are the current levels:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/07poverty.shtml
Scroll down on that page for a chart.

Answer 3

well, they define poverty levels easily enough, something to do with spending a certain percentage on housing/food, and they give a dollar number for a family of four. I dont think they actually define anyone as rich, with a dollar figure or formula, but those few executives who earn multimillion dollar severance packages for being incompetent, id have to call them rich.

Answer 4

Being rich is not about income. It is about assets. Basically, you are rich if you have enough money to sustain at least an upper-middle-class living standard using only income from low-risk investments. Assuming that upper-middle-class living standard begins at $100,000 a year and real return on low-risk investments is 3%, you are rich if you have about $3,000,000 in investable funds.

Answer 5

Wouldn't know or care.

I live off my SS and consider myself rich because God has given me everything I need and want.

Its only the Greedy who have to have more - and a Greedy person can never be satisfied!

Answer 6

Anyone making more than $6.95 an hour is doing pretty darn well for themselves.