Who are the 1%-CNN link

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The original CNN headline for the link to this article was very misleading (wrongly stating the minimum income of the 1% as the average income. Thanks Big Brother!), but it defines the 1% within the text.

Assets are a better indication of financial well being than income.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

the other thing you need to look at is _control_.

Most people live in their homes and don't vote stock in their pensions. Those make up most of the 20% of assets
owned by the bottom 95%. A lot of assets even of the upper 5% are in things like stock index funds that are essentially autopilot investments.

Actual control of all of this is rather narrow.

Someone making $250K/year living in Manhattan or Silicon Valley may be working their way into the upper 5%-but far from there yet. They need a stretch of those kinds of earning with no illness or screw ups-and the cost of maintaining that kind of income is very real too.