The Real Numbers: Half of America in Poverty -- and It's Creeping toward 75%

[hfojvt]

111. but that line is not true

"The distribution is heavily skewed. A very few in this country make obscene amounts of money, and the rest don't make much at all."


From IRS stats, there were 13,480 filers with incomes over $10,000,000 in 2009. Is that your "very few"?

Or are you going to include the 86,329 in the $2 - $5 million range?

There is a fairly sharp drop in frequency after $500,000. Only .631% of tax filers made over $500,000

But is it accurate to say "the rest don't make much at all"?

I dispute that. What about the 3.48 million making between $200,000 and $500,000. From where I sit at $12,000 a year, $200,000 a year is a whole LOT of money. But then, too, so is $80,000. And even more so is $120,000 a year.

There were 11.73 million filers with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 and another 13.85 million with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000. Those two groups alone are almost 20% of all tax filers. Ask any one of the 58.9 million filers making less than $25,000 if $75,000 is a lot of money. Most of them will tell you it is.

And there are another 19 million tax filers making over $50,000 (and less than $75,000) who are neither poor ($23,550 or near poor (200% of the poverty line is $47,100 and they are making more than that)).