From cnbc.com:
How many rich people are there in the U.S., how much do they make and where do they live?
According the data from the Census Bureau, there are currently 4.5 million households that earn over $200,000 per year, which is roughly 3.8% of all households in the country.
1. California
% of Households Earning $200K+: 6.2%
Total Households: 12,200,672
Households Earning $200K+: 757,411
Median Income: $56,862
2. New York
% of Households Earning $200K+: 5.6%
Total Households: 7,099,940 =
Households Earning $200K+: 399,014
Median Income: $50,372
3. Texas
% of Households Earning $200K+: 3.9%
Total households: 8,244,022
Households earning $200K+: 313,681
Median income: $47,143
4. Illinois
% of Households Earning $200K+: 4.4%
Total Households: 4,759,579
Households Earning $200K+: 208,385
Median Income: $53,413
The Census also reports that 12.9% of San Diego County residents (approximately 126,388 people) have incomes of $100,000 or more per year (16.3% of males, and 7.5% of females).
47% of San Diego County residents lived in the same house 5 years ago.
Out of people who lived in different houses, 68% lived in this county.
Out of people who lived in different counties, 44% lived in California.
How many houses are for sale or in the shadow market for over $650,000 in California?
I wonder what occupations these people are making all this cash in?
I imagine:
1.medical field
2.lawyers
3.energy related
4.dare I say any realtors bringing in the bank
5.the city of bell employees and other govt workers?
Interesting how 3 of the 4 states with the most affluent households have treasuries in the tank. And look at the foreclosure data.
The title is “How many rich people?”
I don’t want to underestimate dollars here, but nowadays is earning 100k a year considered rich? Just curious.
My title was getting in on the cnbc article’s title, but yes, good question – does $100K income mean you’re rich? I’m not sure it’ll get you a gold-plated toilet?
It’ll get you a nicely dated one-story on the golf course in Oceanside though….
Yeah, these kinds of studies are flawed because they assume equal dollars means equal standard of living in different cities. Which is not correct.
How is it possible that only 6.2% of San Diegans make over 200k but it seems like 80% of SFR are over 700k? Does this mean that 94% of the people living in million dollar homes here can’t afford it?
DMR–It might also mean that many of the 94% have a blankload of equity and have owned since pre-2000. Hmmm.
The numbers for San Diego County seem low to me. Anecdotally, having been in the tech world in sales for a number of years I personally know a number of people here in tech that make well over $100k a year. Many, including myself, work remotely for much larger companies that are not based in SD. When you couple that with all of the skilled workers employed by Qualcomm and the biotech industry alone that 126k just seems off, particularly in relation the question posed by Del Mar Renter.
Dwip, don’t confuse standard of living with housing availability. Housing costs here are higher because demand for coastal property is higher. It isn’t that our standard of living is higher, there are just more people here making a lot of money and that drives the housing costs upward. Fewer people making a lot of money would drop demand and lower prices.
Otherwise our cars cost about the same, as do most of our other services. We have lower heating and cooling costs along the coast, food costs are average, gas cost is higher.
The real kicker is demand for coastal property and a large number of people making enough to afford it. That pushes everyone else further inland for more affordable housing.
100k a year will buy alotta beer!
Timbuk3
I can live on 20k a year robosigning.
Income is not the real measure of wealth. It is what you have in investments. A big income with little in the bank means you are not rich.
Due to a bidding war between Apple, Facebook, Google, Groupon, etc in Silicon Valley, I’m paying $100K to hire top twenty-three year-old programmers right out of MS computer science programs. It’s not that high of a salary anymore.
But it WILL buy a lot of beer, just like in the song by Tumbuk3.
53 percent of all owner occupied housing was valued at $500,000 or higher yet only 15 percent of actual households can actually afford this payment. Orange County according the data from Dr. Housingbubble. This says it all…
I call b.s. on this article, because:
It’s not how much you earn, it’s how much you keep.
While us Californians might make a lot of money (and I think that 200k bar is a bit low), we also tend to have higher expenses than other places.
A $200k income in Kansas might make you “rich”, but in my area that makes me “average”.
While there are significant differences in cost-of-living among cities and states, if a household earns more than 96.2% of other households, it is certainly “rich”. I have this argument with my in-laws all the time, where they claim they are not rich despite earning more than 98% of all US households and owning three properties. Their view is skewed by their friends who own even more property and earn even more money.
-Kwaping, a $200k income may be “average” for you, but that just means you associate with a very wealthy crowd. You just need to hang out with more people who earn a living by working at Walmart or McDonald’s to readjust your idea of “average”. Lots of people are making a living working in low-end restaurants, and they make up a much larger fraction of the American public than those working as Doctors, lawyers, or other professional classes.
DMR, that’s because most people have a big blind spot that starts either south of 52 or south of 56, and a second blind spot north of 78. For them, it may appear that most houses are above 700K.
In reality, less than 25% of active listings are above 700K, and even fewer actual properties.
If you make 200K, you can afford to spend a bit more than 700K on the house (even after various taxes and maxed out 401K’s, your take-home pay is easily north of 10K/month, and PITI on 700K is in the 3.5K/month range).
It is true that there’s some overhang at the very high end. Above 1M mark, I see 1100 listings in North County, 350 listings in PB and 350 listings in Coronado, and that’s about twice the average number of listings per capita in SD.