{"id":40367,"date":"2011-10-12T12:31:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T17:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=40367"},"modified":"2011-11-09T13:52:45","modified_gmt":"2011-11-09T18:52:45","slug":"occupy-wall-street-who-are-the-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/10\/12\/occupy-wall-street-who-are-the-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Occupy Wall Street: Who are the 1%?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Thick Culture<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0Occupy Wall Street<\/a> protests have garnered a great deal of attention in recent weeks. The core argument is that the \u201ctop one percent\u201d has gotten a free ride in the last few decades, particularly during the last few years where the financial sector has seemingly not been held to account for their role in the financial crisis. But who is the \u201ctop one percent\u201d?<\/p>\n

Suzy Khimm on Ezra Klein\u2019s blog<\/a> sheds light on this question.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d be in the top 1 percent of U.S. households if your income in 2010 was at least $516,633. Your net worth in 2007 was $8,232,000 or more, and your average income this year is $1,530,773.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Khimm also shares some charts from\u00a0Dave Gilson<\/a> that looks deeper into who these \u201c1 percenters\u201d really are. In this chart, he notes that those in the top one percent have a broad range of professions. You\u2019ll note from the chart than only 14 percent come from the financial sector, and a scant 2 percent are classified as \u201centrepreneurs.\u201d As a side note, how did any professors make this list (1.8 percent)!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This data doesn\u2019t play into the story the \u201c99 percenters\u201d want to tell about the \u201ctop 1 percent.\u201d The preferred narrative is that the top one percent come from the financial sector (e.g. their wealth is not earned in the same way an entrepreneur\u2019s wealth is earned).<\/p>\n

But another of Gilson\u2019s charts does help the 99 percenter\u2019s story. According to this chart, the top one percent owns a majority share of the nation\u2019s stock\/mutual funds, securities, and business equity) when compared to the \u201cbottom 90 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What does this say about the validity of the Occupy Wall street movement? Should they be focusing their efforts on challenging concentrated wealth regardless of whether it is in the financial sector or not? Or is Wall Street the perfect villain? \u00a0Does it matter if the story of who constitutes the \u201ctop 1 percent\u201d is more muddled if the objective is met? Do the means justify the ends?<\/p>\n

——————————<\/p>\n

Jose Marichal, PhD<\/a>, is an assistant professor of political science at California Lutheran University. He teaches and writes about: public policy, race and politics, civic engagement, the Internet and politics, and community development.\u00a0\u00a0He is founder of the blog\u00a0ThickCulture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our\u00a0Guidelines for Guest Bloggers<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at Thick Culture. The\u00a0Occupy Wall Street protests have garnered a great deal of attention in recent weeks. The core argument is that the \u201ctop one percent\u201d has gotten a free ride in the last few decades, particularly during the last few years where the financial sector has seemingly not been held to account for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,29,85,76],"class_list":["post-40367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-class","tag-politics","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40367"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40373,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40367\/revisions\/40373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}