Why So Many Rich People Don’t Feel Very Rich

[dstark]

<p>What do you think igloo?</p>

[poetgrl]

<p>I wonder if being done paying for college tuition makes you feel rich again? I certainly feel richer knowing we have one through and the other partway through. B-) </p>

[roshke]

<p><a href=“Why Don't the 1 Percent Feel Rich? - The Atlantic”>Why Don't the 1 Percent Feel Rich? - The Atlantic;

<p>

But another part of it is status anxiety. Not just conspicuous consumption, though there is plenty of that. Rather, it’s the terror that their kids will fall behind. That if they don’t get their toddler into the right preschool, they’ll blow any chance of getting them into Harvard. So they spend ungodly sums on tuition, tutors, and enrichment activities to try to keep up with the other 1 percenters in the college admissions arms race. There’s a perverse logic to it all: the richer the 1 percent get, the higher the cost of falling out. And that’s why the “bottom of the 1 percent” in particular aren’t getting wealthier. They’re making more, but they’re also spending more on their kids.

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[Nrdsb4]

<p>

We think having a car for every licensed driver is the norm, because we see it all the time, in our magazines, our TV, heck, our neighborhoods. For a large part of the world, that’s as much a fantasy as streets lined with gold.

</p>

<p>D1 is very aware of and grateful for the advantages with which she has been blessed, and she is very sensitive to the fact that most of her friends have not been so privileged. When she brought a dear friend to our home from another country, she asked me “Please PLEASE don’t tell him we have four cars. He’ll think we are crazy.”</p>

[Hunt]

<p>I think “status anxiety” makes a lot of sense, and maybe is part of what we’re really talking about here. As several have noted, it may even be justified, inasmuch as we fear that our children may not be able to have the same status (or lifestyle) that we have. They may still end up being rich by world standards, and hopefully they will realize that, but that’s a different issue.</p>

[eyemamom]

<p>The comment that people should be grateful because they’re richer than those in third world countries reminds me of my mom telling me to finish my lima beans because people in some other country were starving. </p>

<p>Wealthy to me is “enough”. How people define that is up for debate. </p>

[ChoatieMom]

<p>

…don’t tell him we have four cars. He’ll think we are crazy.

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<p>We have two cars, and I think we are crazy. Well, profligate.</p>

[Deborah_T]

<p>I’m actually enjoying this symphony. It’s a good break from what’s really on my plate. ;)</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>I love this paragraph from the article referenced above:</p>

<p>

Okay, that’s not true at all. But they think it is. If you talk to people on Wall Street, most of them—even, in my experience, the ones shopping for Lamborghinis—will tell you that they’re “middle class.” Their lament, the lament of the HENRY (short for “high-earner, not rich yet”), goes something like this. Youtry living on $350,000 a year when you have to pay taxes, the mortgage on the house in a tony zip code, the nanny who knows how to cook ethnic cuisine, the private school tuition from pre-K on, the appropriately exclusive vacation, and max out your retirement and college savings accounts. There just isn’t that much cash left over each month once you’ve spent it all!

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[alh]

<p>FWIW: I ordered the Shawn Achor book : )</p>

<p>adding: and not because of the Harvard connection ; )</p>

[Nrdsb4]

<p>

There just isn’t that much cash left over each month once you’ve spent it all!

</p>

<p>As a friend used to say, “No #$@%*, Sherlock!”</p>

[poetgrl]

<p>Yes. That is a bit of a tautology. </p>

[Iglooo]

<p>

But another part of it is status anxiety. Not just conspicuous consumption, though there is plenty of that. Rather, it’s the terror that their kids will fall behind.

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<p>This is what I was wondering before the thread got derailed. More specifically, I was wondering where the anxiety was coming from. Are we sensing that the middle class is dwindling and that if we don’t somehow move up to the upper class now we may be left behind with little chance to catch?</p>

[tom1944]

<p>Perception plays a huge part in this. I was speaking to my parents today and they were telling me about a new friend they met walking at the mall. They said he has 2 kids in the top 1%. I said so what so do you. They thought I was nuts until I had them google the family income of the top 1%. They thought the top 1% made money in the range of Oprah.</p>

[poetgrl]

<p>not that anybody needs what Oprah has, and might end up losing with this silly TV station of hers, but that is the heart of the problem, Tom. Exactly. When people say 1% they think Gates, Winfrey, Buffet.</p>

<p>Unfortunately that kind of wealth is so rare that even most of the 1% (not to put to fine a point on it) are not in the 1% the way the public imagines them to be.</p>

<p><a href=“The Richest 0.1 Percent Is About to Control More Wealth Than the Bottom 90 Percent – Mother Jones”>http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/11/income-inequality-rise-1-percent&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

[quote]
The rise of wealth inequality is almost entirely due to the rise of the top 0.1% wealth share, from 7% in 1979 to 22% in 2012, a level almost as high as in 1929. The bottom 90% wealth share first increased up to the mid-1980s and then steadily declined. The increase in wealth concentration is due to the surge of top incomes combined with an increase in saving rate inequality.

[quote]
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[IxnayBob]

<p>@tom1944, heck, from what I understand, the top 1% in income is only 50% to 100% too high to get some need-based aid. It’s nice money, but very far from Oprah money. </p>

<p>ETA: btw, I think less than 0.01% of people discuss their kids’ success in terms of percentiles with people they just met walking in the mall. What are the odds? I’d buy a lottery ticket :)</p>

[CT1417]

<p>@Igloo – you asked: “More specifically, I was wondering where the anxiety was coming from.”</p>

<p>Could some of the anxiety be a function of not knowing how much is enough—for retirement and to support oneself for the remaining days? Perhaps this thought belongs on the Retirement thread.</p>

[Iglooo]

<p>The guy who didn’t have money because he had to buy a Lamborghini isn’t worried about his retirement, I’d think. These are the anxious ones, aren’t they? And there are so many fancy cars these days. In the space of a week or two, I saw a lamboghini, a maserati, and a bentley.</p>

[2018dad]

<p>

@tom1944, heck, from what I understand, the top 1% in income is only 50% to 100% too high to get some need-based aid. It’s nice money, but very far from Oprah money.</p>

<p>

To be a 1 percenter, HH income s/b at least 350K. Even Harvard will not give you anything with that income.</p>

[HImom]

<p>The web says 1% = >$388K/yr. 3% is >$200K/yr for 2014. I have never talked about what I or my relatives make, tho it is possible to have rough guesses due to their professions. It doesn’t seem like an appropriate topic for the conversations I particpate in.</p>