01/21/2012
This article appeared in the Greensboro News and Record on January 21, 2012.
It references the MoveOn Guilford County Council's role in challenging economic injustice.
Earn $344,000? Then welcome to Triad’s 1 percent
• An analysis shows the income threshold for the elite actually shifts depending on where you live.
BY DONALD W. PATTERSON
Staff Writer
GREENSBORO — Want to be part of the 1 percent? Want to leave the 99 percent groveling in your wake? Here’s how. In the Triad, just draw an annual household income of $344,000. And you’re in. “That leaves me out,” said Ken Knight, a retired social worker who lives in Greensboro. “That is pretty phenomenal.” Actually, compared to some parts of the country and the state, it’s a bargain. According to a New York Times analysis, it takes an annual income of $380,000 to make the top 1 percent nationally. That’s $36,000 more than the Triad.
And in North Carolina, four other areas have higher thresholds than the Triad, which includes the combined metros of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem.
Not surprisingly, residents in the Raleigh-Durham area ($395,000) and the Charlotte metro ($384,000) need considerably higher annual incomes to make the 1 percent.
But the Asheville and Wilmington areas ($362,000 each) have higher entry points as well.
Some analysts see the Triad’s fifth-place ranking as another sign that the area has not regained the corporate wealth that existed here when to***co, textiles and furniture dominated the region’s economy.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Keith Debbage, a UNCG geography professor who follows the area’s economic trends, said about the ranking. “What it also speaks to is the absence of wage disparity.”
But John Quinterno, a principal at South by North Strategies, a research firm in Chapel Hill, takes a different tack.
“It doesn’t surprise me that there is some variation,” Quinterno said. “The point is a lot of the variation in income distribution is going to hinge on factors unique to different communities .”
He said Asheville and Wilmington are good examples.
“Those are retiree-friendly destinations,” Quinterno said. “Those areas probably imported a good deal of their wealth from other parts of the country.”
That’s one of the points of the Times story, which appeared in Sunday’s paper.
It focuses on how greatly the 1 percent thresholds vary around the county.
Using data collected by the University of Minnesota Population Center, the Times found that it takes only $176,000 to make the 1 percent in Jamestown, N.Y., the lowest entry point in the nation, and $908,000 in Stamford, Conn., the highest.
Considerable variation also occurs in North Carolina. For example, the $262,000 threshold in Fayetteville totals $133,000 lower than the one in Raleigh-Durham.
“In reality, it is a far larger and more varied group,” the story said of the 1 percenters. “(It’s) one that includes ... the self-made and the silver-spoon set.”
The newspaper’s numbers, which are lower than those in some other studies, cover pretax income but do not include capital gains.
Nationally, the Times data show:
• The 1 percent has a median income of $468,000 compared with $50,400 for the 99 percent.
• That 92 percent of them own their own homes compared with 66 percent for the rest.
• They have a median home value of $700,000 compared with $180,000 for the 99 percent.
• Nearly half of the 1 percent have advanced degrees compared with 11 percent for the rest.
• They are 82 percent white and 2 percent black.
The story did miss a significant point, said Ed-win McLenaghan, a public policy analyst for the N.C. Budget and Tax Center in Raleigh.
“Who has gained the most wealth?” McLenaghan said. “It’s the top 0.1 percent. That is where you have seen the lion’s share of the big incomes over the past 30 years.”
Be it 1 percent or 0.1 percent, the numbers leave Ken Knight shaking his head. He can’t imagine an income of $344,000.
“Those kind of numbers have no meaning to me,” said Knight, organizer of the MoveOn Council of Guilford County, the local arm of a progressive national organization. “It’s like play money.”
Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson -record.com
