What Americans Consider Rich

 

Many Indians who haven’t been abroad,tend to multiply foreign salaries by the exchange rate, compare them with Indian ones and get suckered into various job offers.However,what is rich and what is wealthy is really relative.It depends on where in the world a person  comes from and exactly how well off or not so well off the person might be in his/her own society.

Here are some figures of what Americans in general consider Rich and Wealthy in America.They are sourced from the results of the Gallup Poll reported here: http://www.gallup.com/poll/151427/Americans-Set-Rich-Threshold-150-000-Annual-Income.aspx

The table below shows what percentage of Americans consider how much a year as being rich :

Less than 60,000 USD	18
60,000-99,999 USD	12
100,000-150,000 USD	23
150,001-299,999USD	18
300,000-999,999USD	14
1 Million USD	11
More Than 1 Million USD	4

The next table shows the median value of income that different groups of Americans consider makes a person rich:

All Americans	150,000 USD
Men	150,000 USD
Women	100,000 USD
18 to 49 years	160,000 USD
50+years	100,000 USD
College Graduate	200,000 USD
College NonGraduate	100,000 USD
Annual Household Income Less than 50K USD	100,000 USD
Annual Household Income equal to or more than 50K USD	200,000 USD
Children Under 18	200,000 USD
No Children Under 18	100,000 USD
Big/Small City	200,000 USD
Suburb of Big/Small City	200,000 USD
Town/Rural Area	100,000 USD

The final table shows what percentage of Americans consider what net-worth as being wealthy in America.

Less Than 100.000 USD	13
100,000 USD	9
100,001-299,999 USD	6
300,000 – 999,999 USD	21
1,000,000 USD	24
1,000,001 – 4,999,999 USD	12
5,000,000 USD or More	14

So on an average, Americans consider having an income of 150,000 a year as being rich and having a million dollars stashed away as being wealthy.What strikes me so strongly at this point is that Americans would consider about 61/2 years of a rich person’s income put away as being wealthy.We Indian’s in India may not easily see these huge incomes,but any day a lot of us might beat the Americans at the net worth stakes whether  in dollar terms, PPP terms or just in terms of how many year’s income and by proxy expense we have stashed away.