Most Common Jobs Of The One Percenters: Report
Analyzing tax data from 1979 to 2005, the report finds that those in management and executive positions make up the majority of the top 1 percent of income earners. Finance executives in particular have increased their share of the 1 percent, accounting for 13.9 percent of top earners in 2005, compared to 7.7 percent in 1979.
Medical professionals, lawyers and people that aren’t working or trying to look for work also make up big portions of the 1 percent.
The report also shows that inequality has gotten worse in recent years. In 2005, the last year of data the researchers analyzed, the top 1 percent took home 16.97 percent of total income distributed to all American households. In 2008 that number jumped to 21 percent, The New York Times reports.
In terms of actual cash, the Washington Post reports that last year the top 1 percent had a minimum income of $516,633. By contrast the bottom 20 percent earned a maximum of only $16,961.