General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: $20,833.00 per month???? [View all]Chathamization
(1,638 posts)Comparing the income of people making 250k to the wealth of others. The person making 250k is likely to have much more than 250k in wealth.
Let's go by taught_me_patience's own numbers (which are only for 250k, even though they claims they makes well above that). He's buying a million dollar house. With a 5% increase in property value (average increase), you're looking at a house that's about $4.3 million. Even without any match from his employer (which is unusual), his 401k, assuming he keeps payments inline with inflation, will be worth about $3 million after 30 years. So ~$7.3 million just from these two things alone, but then you have to factor in inflation. Averaging at about 3%, we get around $3 million dollars in assets from just the 401k and the house.
This is only based on two of the investments mentioned in that post. Once you factor in other things (assets like cars, furniture, jewelry, what happens to that 1k a month once you pay off your student loans or the 2k a month once your kids are gone, pensions, etc.), people making 250k can easily end up with wealth well over $4 million.
The median household wealth of Americans between the age of 55 and 65 in 2007 was $239,000. Since a lot of that was property value, I wouldn't be surprised if there's been a drop since the bubble burst.
You're trying to argue that people with a wealth of $4 million+ live a very different life from those with twice their amount of wealth, but a similar life with those who have 1/20th of their wealth. A conclusion that can only be reached by moving the goal posts and judging the 250k people on their salary not their wealth and the one-percenters on their wealth not their salary.