Quote:
Originally Posted by Russ_Boston
This would be exactly the opposite of the Pareto principle.
That principle states that 80% of wealth is controlled by 20% of the population. Here we have the majority of wealth being controlled by the majority of the population who cared to report. Which means that either people are exaggerating their income or TOTV has some people who knew how to save!! My bet is on the latter.
This can still only be used to get at median since the upper end might dramatically distort any attempt at average.
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As an observation, I'm guessing that the few who control the wealth won't be moving to TV. It was always my understanding that around 5% of the population controlled about 95% of the wealth. Think names from the Fortune Richest People Lists that get published. These folks buy compounds with walls around them, not homes in retirement communities.
Also, some general rules may apply across the entire population, but the population you are accessing with this poll is really very narrow. They are almost like the folks in the famous telephone poll done by some old presidential candidate (who lost). Apparently, people who had phones liked this guy, so he was predicted a winner. But when the voters turned out, it seemed the folks without phones outnumber and disagreed with the ones with phones. Was it Dewey? I don't recall.
Anyway, you are asking the folks who live in TV how much they do or expect to earn. So you've already eliminated the ones who can't afford it. And the ones who have their own tropical island!
And it ignores expenses. The folks earning $2k a month SS with no mortgage and who eats in every day may be better off than a snowbird with 2 mortgages and an income of $150K per year (The old:"It doesn't matter what you make, but rather what you spend").
All that said, it's an interesting poll. With the number of folks in the "Over $85K range", it would seem a little more granularity at the top end would show the distribution better. There's a lot of room between $85K and "Beyond Rich" in my book.
Anyway, thanks for posting the poll.