Given the frequent debates on College Confidential about what income levels qualify as “rich” or “elite,” I thought some people might enjoy this New York Times quiz.
It was interesting to me, because before joining College Confidential, I considered myself “upper middle class,” as do most people in my area who are around my income level. After reading people’s input on CC, including national income levels, I was like, “Oh, I guess we’re above middle class.” But this New York Times quiz put us back down again, responding to my answers to the survey with the comment, “No, you’re not rich.”
The quiz is based on your own perception. If you consider the top 5% of wage earners “rich” and you earn just less than that, it will tell you you’re not rich.
I think the NYT “quiz” is overly simplistic and therefore flawed and of limited use. The only input is current income and closest metropolitan area. It ignores assets. Being a retiree, it is too rudimentary to do a useful analysis for me as I don’t bring in income other than investment income, which I intentionally try to limit, yet I have assets which make me wealthier than my current income would demonstrate.
Seems like the point of the article is that people tend to think they are poorer relative to those around them than they actually are. Which matches up with how people on these forums think of themselves as “middle class” despite income and/or wealth that means no college FA anywhere.
Thank you, @ucbalumnus. I’m on my phone so I didn’t see that there was an article under the survey. It’s interesting that it shows “your threshold for rich” then compares your reported income to the actual incomes of people in your area. I took OP’s post to mean that the article supported their view that they aren’t rich in comparison to most people in the area, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. It depends on how you interpret the data.
I did an experiment for the NYC area and chose rich as the Top 20% and said our income is $165k. The top of the report says “No, you’re not rich” in big letters, but adds in smaller text “based on the threshold you set.” So all that means is you think you’re not rich. People need to study the chart to see that a $165k income puts them in the 75th percentile for our area. If having stats that put you in the upper 25th percentile of a school makes you high stats for that school, it seems like having an income that puts you in the upper 25th percentile of a region would make you upper income for that area.
The article does note that assets and expenses (such as high medical bills or high student debt) do make a difference, but that’s a difference in wealth not income. I think that’s what colleges use to calculate financial aid. You can be upper income, but they’ll consider special circumstances that affect wealth.
^ @scout59 - you can see a certain # of NYT articles free each month.
While its a simplistic model, its interesting to have us see how we equate income to our perceived “class”. Still reminds me of the long-gone poster who claimed to be “dirt poor” despite having a personal banker, taking expensive trips, buying expensive camera equipment, etc. (and it sounded like he had the $ to do it).
@jym626 - yeah, I usually run through those free articles pretty quickly! And the comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
Oh yes, I remember that long-gone poster…and I resent the comparison! (Again, tongue-in-cheek.) I also agree about that disconnect between “class” and income. I see it all the time IRL and on CC.
I thought of you @ucbalumnus when I saw this article as it reflected your frequent comments about CCers perception of their income class vs reality. The point of the article is simply to get people to recognize that their income may well put them at a level that is beyond middle class. Of course assets, expenses and age make a difference (which is why average or median income is not always the best measure since that includes new graduates and retirees), but when people live in their suburban bubbles they often don’t recognize how much more they earn than the average household.
One reason it’s good for kids to study abroad. After living in Spain for six months while a high school sophomore, my daughter came home shocked at our standard of living compared to those of her host parents and others in Cadiz.
@scout59 - Its only Aug 2 and you’ve run through this month’s NYT freebie articles already?? ( ?? ) (LOL)
I am also not willing to pay for the online subscription (and recently gave up our local paper after decades of delivery) but usually can find a freebie version of an article published elsewhere by searching by the title or author. Not always as effective with WSJ articles, though
As others have said, this phrase completely invalidates the “quiz” in my opinion.
It doesn’t matter if the quiz accounts for assets, or anything else. It would be more appropriate if the quiz was titled “Do you think you’re a high earner?”
Further, if the quizzee answers “Don’t Know / None Of These” to the question about what the quizzee considers to be a “rich” income, this is the answer for every possible income entered, from 60,000 to 2,000,000 (which the quiz caps at 200,000)
Oh. That’s not very helpful, Quiz Author(s)
Thanks for the link to the quiz. It was an cute diversion to the morning. But no thanks to the authors, who didn’t appear to even be trying to deliver the goods with this article/quiz.
On a related note, a list of the top 20 universities with the “highest number of ultra rich alumni” was recently shared on msn.com. (Harvard, Stanford, Penn, & Columbia topped the list followed by NYU, MIT & Northwestern.)
I’m curious if there are similar lists for community colleges? I have no idea if community colleges have significant endowments and/or generous donating alumni
