this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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I think it's worth noting that being counted among the "rich people" (defined by the article as the world's top 10% by income or wealth) starts at a number a lot lower than most Americans (or Westerners in general) might realize: $122,100/year measured by income, or $771,300 measured by net worth. (Source: World Inequality Report 2022, page 9.) In fact, even that second figure might be (vastly) overstated, because another paper I found claims that it only takes $138,346 net worth to be in the top 10%, and $1,146,685 gets you into the top 1%! (Source: Credit Suisse Research Institute Global Wealth Report 2022, page 22.)
In other words, a Hell of a lot of those global rich people are Americans who are deluding themselves to think they're middle-class and not part of the problem. We're not talking about just Musk and Bezos and shit; we're talking about you and me. Literally, in fact: at least according to the Credit Suisse definition, I myself am one of the rich people @z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml wants to eat!
I also think you overestimate how many western people are rich by this standard. For example, nobody I know would be part of the 10% here by that income, and I live in Norway.
And really, you really don't need more than that to live a good and luxurious life. In fact I think you don't even need to be anywhere close to that, even. Especially if you implement some actual rent controls, lower incomes are plenty fine.
This graph seems to suggest the average income for Norwegians is around US$110k. That's pretty close to the global top 10% threshold of US$122k.
I'm unsure if that data is accurate, but if it is, I'm assuming you don't live in a capital/major city where things tend to cost more and hence average jobs get paid slightly more? The contrast between city and rural salaries / cost of living is pretty stark where I am.
Uh, no, the median yearly income is 572k NOK (51k USD), the mean is 631k NOK (57k USD).
https://www.ssb.no/arbeid-og-lonn/lonn-og-arbeidskraftkostnader/artikler/hva-er-vanlig-lonn-i-norge
Also I live in the capital, the rent's high :<
Yeah this uses average and a different type of calculation called the United Nations System of National Accounts (SNA 2008). They're also the data the study in the article uses for its basis. From the graph info:
No idea how much that affects things, but it's the official government numbers basically standardised across countries to try to factor in access to infrastructure, etc. Definitely not perfect because it still has tp be an estimate, but still at least based on the same official source.
Unless they genuinely fucked up, which is still possible.
But basically, most everyone you know is likely in the global top 15%-20% even if none of you look individually rich, because you all have access to a high standard of living.