Who, Me? A One Percenter?

No one wants to be a One Percenter anymore. Including the One Percent.  A new study shows that the vast majority of people earning more than $250,000 a year say they are not in the One Percent. CNBC writes that many of them actually are One Percenters, since the cut-off for the One Percent is $343,000 a year in income.

In the latest Mendelsohn Affluent Barometer, most of the $250,000-plus earners say they’re only in the top 20 percent. In fact, as a group, they’re in the top 3 percent and higher.

It turns out, One Percenters (like many Americans) have a vastly overinflated perception of the American income system and tend to rank themselves much lower than their actual position. They believe there are plenty of Americans who make far more than they do, even though that’s not the case.

Americans who make $250,000 (Mendelsohn calls them “ultra-affluents”) think that it takes at least $1.67 million in annual income to make it into the top one percent of income. That’s nearly five times the actual cutoff point…

Wait…wait…there’s more at http://www.cnbc.com/id/48338035/