https://hechingerreport.org/community-colleges-join-the-fundraising-game/
Coming from a developing country, it’s always interesting to see what Americans regard as “poor”. Like, living in your car is poor. Back home if you’re poor, you don’t have, and probably have never had, and no one in your family has probably ever had, a car. So yes, relative is definitely part of it. That said, the NYT article is clearly flawed - $150k say, income with a $1m house and $900k mortgage is very different to $150k income with $5m net assets.
Seems like most people in the US define “poor” and “rich” relative to themselves (most people define themselves as “middle class”). The threshold for “poor” is lower than the amount of income/wealth that they have, and the threshold for “rich” is higher than the amount of income/wealth that they have.
The first person may think that the second person is “rich”, while the second person may think that the first person is “poor”, even though both may think of themselves as “middle class”.
I have known plenty of people with high incomes that were not comfortable and conversely I have known plenty of people with lower incomes be extremely comfortable. Comfortable is definitely different than rich, but I will take comfortable any day of the week over rich and stressed.
My folks were some of the most comfortable people I know in retirement. My Dad has passed. My mom has nothing in the market. Plenty of cash on hand, actually too much. Pension and Social Security for income. House has been paid off for 20+ years. It was the house I grew up in. She will never have to worry about money the rest of her life. The only way she would have to worry is if the whole US financial system collapsed. I would take that retirement in a heartbeat if I could.
I had fun with it and used it to see where I stood in income percentile in a variety of cities. I do much better where I live than in many other cities. I’m a bit over the 70th percentile where I live, in SF I’d be around the 40th. That says nothing about how I’d be able to live there. It was amusing.
It says that the top 5% threshold for 35-64 year old people in San Jose is $353k individual and $523k household (median is $80k individual and $133k household). Seems hard to believe that there are that many stock option jackpots every year.
I could take this but I am not really worried if I am rich - it’s really not a question! Maybe I’ll take it just to CONFIRM I’m not! 
However, I might say that for those who are “rich” or taking a quiz to see if you, cross your fingers are…- and who click on news site articles to gain information, you might consider using some of those $$$ to support the news sites that you seek to provide you with information.
A quiz just gives you something to talk about or think about. Most won’t claim to be infallible. And truth is, people are talking about this one right here!
I used top 25% as definition and was still told rather witheringly that No, you’re not rich. It was a bit surprising to me, since I do feel rich.
Like others have said, it seems more a quiz about self-perception than economic condition, and it does give us something to talk about.
In 2017, the median salary at Facebook was $240K. Median.
If you say you’re in the San Jose metro area, and you say you think that only the top 1% are rich, there is no income you can possibly enter that will result in the system saying you’re rich. You’re only allowed to put in up to $400K for your family income, and $400K is not in the top 1%.
When choosing my definition of top what % rich I thought about this- if top 25% are rich, then that would mean 1 our of 4 people randomly selected are rich? 10% = 1 out of 10. And so on. I didn’t think it would be realistic to thing that more than 1 out of 10 are rich. At least not in my midwest city!
My secretary once told me she considered herself rich if she could pay the bills at the end of the month. I thought that was a great perspective of living within your means.
50th percentile for my area. Middle class just like I assumed lol
I would have thought 99% regular parents on CC are 1%ers ?
American definitions:
Well off = You have a plane
Rich = You have a jet
Super-rich= You have a jet starting with A3xx or 7x7
Well-off= You have a boat
Rich = You have a yacht
Super-Rich= Your yacht has a heli-pad
Well-off = You endowed a professorship
Rich = Your name is on a building
Super-rich = Your name is on a college
etc., etc.
On a related topic, there is a very interesting article in the WSJ today that shows that many parents are going into debt to maintain a middle class lifestyle (cars, houses, education, etc.). https://www.wsj.com/articles/families-go-deep-in-debt-to-stay-in-the-middle-class-11564673734. (This may or may not be behind a pay wall. My apologies if it is). To what extent are you middle class if you are going into debt to have the lifestyle?
I’m wondering if this is just a portent of the next financial crisis and, if the financial crisis comes, who will folks be mad at? The people who voted for a big tax cut for the top 1% with no significant benefit to business investment or the folks who have “plans” to make college free and healthcare universal. Hard for me to understand these days.
I don’t think income is the best measure of how rich one is. There’s certainly some correlation between income and wealth, but they aren’t the same thing. Some people have real estate worth millions (perhaps inherited) that produces no income, and millions more in investments that produce relatively modest annual income but scads in unrealized capital gains. Other people who work for a living may have similar incomes but far less in accumulated wealth for any number of reasons—they didn’t inherit much, they only recently moved into that income tier, they’re still carrying heavy mortgage and student loan debt, or whatever. When I think “rich,” I think of the 1% who own most of the wealth. I don’t need to take the NY Times quiz to tell me I’m nowhere near that category.
My income is at the 90th %ile for my area but I’m not considered “rich”.
Whatever.
I am trying to get my head around people’s comments about the difference between income and assets. In our family, we have our incomes from our employment, our checking and savings accounts with money we have saved from our incomes, my 403b and my spouse’s 401k retirement accounts and our 529 college account for our son (to all of which we regularly contribute a designated amount of money from our paychecks), and we own our 4-bedroom house having recently paid off the last of our mortgage with a lower-interest home equity loan that we will pay off soon. I guess our house and the retirement and college accounts would be considered our “assets”?
I would imagine that the most important factor in any financial aid decision for my son would be our income…
Well, I completed it… I always said I wasn’t rich but apparently according to NYT…
“Yes, You might be Rich”
Apparently, my family is earning an income 95% higher than of earners in my local metropolitan area…
I guess I just might be a tad bit wealthy but at least I’m not spoiled eh?
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
For this thread, assume that the question is rhetorical. Responses deleted as derailing.
It’s a parlor game at best. Not unlike a Cosmo quiz, IMO.