How much money do you have to earn in a year to be in the top 1% of American earners?

Question

Yes, this IS a political question.
Obliquely.

Answer 1

The top 1% make over $350,000 a year. Alot of them do get it from capital gains and not earnings.
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2007/rasmus0207.html
http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/03/09/rich-get-richer-middle-class-shrinks/

Answer 2

About 100,000 to be in the upper 5%.
About 200,000 to be in the upper 3%
About 300,000 to be in the upper 1%
And after that it really get's strange, basically it's the case that a few hundred people control about 90% of the wealth in this country.

So whether you make 40,000 or 340,000 a year you are in the same boat. you're poor, that's a factor of 10 in difference in salary, not the differences of 1000 or 10,000 which pervade in the upper reaches of our economy.

In relation to the truly wealthy and when politicians talk about tax cuts, they really aren't thinking about YOU.

Answer 3

As of 2004: "To break into the top 1 percent, a tax return had to have an AGI of $328,049 or more." (AGI=adjusted gross income)

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/250.html

Answer 4

Trick question. The top 1% don't EARN anything. They get that money from capital gains and inheritance, not honest work.

Answer 5

A lot

you'd probably get better and more factual answers if you put this in the appropriate section, even if it is related to politics.

Answer 6

I benefited from the tax cuts. Must be me.
I teach in elementary school (less than $40,000 a year).

WOW! I'm RICH! I better run for the hills because all the communists and socialists are out for the rich this year.

What silliness, on both sides.

Answer 7

My guess would be 10 Million.

Answer 8

The leftie definition of "Rich" is "Anyone who makes enough to pay taxes", which is also by coincidence the exact definition of who got tax cuts under Bush.