What’s Rich?
By Matt Zeitlin - Aug 18th, 2008 at 3:21 pmOne big concern throughout the presidential campaign campaign has been the definition of “rich.” This has been a problem for Obama because he only wants to raise taxes on the “rich,” and so he wants to set that mark as low as possible. McCain, who has a net worth of $40 million, wants to set it as high as possible so that he can say that Obama is raising taxes on the middle class, and so he doesn’t seem massively out of touch with most Americans (owning 9 houses can do that to you).
During the Saddleback Forum, Rick Warren asked both candidates to say how much yearly income made someone “rich.” Obama responded with $150,000, which would put someone in the 94th percentile of income. McCain fumbled around for a bit and said $5 million, which, as Ezra Klein says, “is about $3.4 million more per year than you need to qualify for the top 0.1 percentile.” Klein made a helpful chart showing how both candidates definition of “rich” compared to how much money most people actually make.
Wherever the line is drawn (it will inevitably be arbitrary), one must consider that the cost of living varies so sharply that a family making $60k in New York is actually poorer in purchasing power than a family making the same amount in Iowa. Though the geographic differentials for food and clothing may be small, the housing cost differential is gaping.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:28 pmYes, that’s obviously true. Where I’m from, the Bay Area, there are people whose income approaches 1 million dollars and yet still feel a cost of living squeeze. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Where McCain is from and around the people he hangs out with, 5 million dollars doesn’t seem like THAT much. I mean, if you have nine houses and private planes, it barely covers your cost of living. But very, very few Americans live in situations like that, and it really does call into question McCain’s ability to formulate policy for a nation in which just about everyone doesn’t live like him.
August 18th, 2008 at 3:34 pmthe graph is a bit confusing. because a tall bar that represents mccain’s definition of “rich” doesnt visually show the “less than 0.01%”
August 18th, 2008 at 4:19 pmit would be helpful to have a distribution graph of income with the frequencies on the left and amount people make on the bottom.