And it was bullshit when Black Mamba said it, too. The division between the 1% and the 99% has principally--though not exclusively--been treated as a division based on income, not wealth. The results of a quick and easy Google search (perhaps the best medicine for failing memories) support this conclusion:
Here's the
Chicago Tribune ("The Internal Revenue Service says that in order to qualify for the 1 percent, you had to have an adjusted gross income of at least $343,927 in 2009. That's using the most recent year's figures available." The article later notes parenthetically the necessary net worth to be among the top 1% in wealth). Here's
Barron's ("While the report studies all affluent earning more than $100,000 year, I am only going to zero in on the section of the report dealing exclusively with the top 1%, 390 of the 1,268 surveyed that had more than $450,000 in annual income.") Here's a study by
Emmanuel Saez from early 2012 ("Top 1% incomes grew by 11.6% while bottom 99% incomes grew only by 0.2%. Hence, the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in the first year of recovery. Such an uneven recovery can help explain the recent public demonstrations against inequality.") Here's
The Economist ("Occupy Wall Street gets a boost from a new report on income distribution"). And
again ("The ultra-rich skew that average upwards: admission to the 1% began at $380,000 in 2008. The Congressional Budget Office puts the cut-off lower, at $347,000 in 2007, or $252,000 after subtracting federal taxes and adding back transfers." They also offer, as an
alternative measure, the cut-off for the top 1% by wealth). Here's a
Gallup poll from late 2011 ("Politically, the wealthiest 1% of Americans -- those in households earning $500,000 or more annually -- are somewhat to the right of the remaining 99%, but more in terms of party identification than self-professed ideology.")
Politico reported on the poll here ("Of the country’s top 1 percent — those in households that earn $500,000 or more annually who the Occupy Wall Street movement has been protesting against — 41 percent identify themselves as independents, while 33 percent say they are Republicans and 26 percent are Democrats.")Here's
HuffPo, in a piece entitled, "What The 1% Majored In" ("The New York Times recently endeavored to find what the top 1% of earners majored in while in college. Using information from the Census Bureau's 2010 American Community Survey, they found being a pre-med gave you the best chance of joining the financial cream of the crop. Economics came in second. In a surprise twist, zoology cracked the top 5.") Here's
Michael Moore, claiming to live "among the 1%."
NBC News understood him to be referring to his income, not net worth. Here's
CNN ("Think it takes a million bucks to make it into the Top 1% of American taxpayers? Think again. In 2009, it took just $343,927 to join that elite group, according to newly released statistics from the Internal Revenue Service.") And
again, in a follow-up a year later ("It doesn't take a million bucks to get into the top 1%. In fact, it took a little less than $370,000 in adjusted gross income in 2010 to make it into this elite group, according to newly released data from the Internal Revenue Service.")
Mother Jones demonstrates its lack of sophistication regarding the difference between income and wealth. California's
Metropolitan Transportation Commission certainly seemed to believe that being a member of the "top 1%" was a matter of income, rather than wealth. The
New York Times agreed ("The range of wealth in the 1 percent is vast — from households that bring in $380,000 a year, according to census data, up to billionaires like Warren E. Buffett and Bill Gates"). (You might recognize the names of the authors of that article--they're the same two that wrote the article you linked to. Even to them, measuring the "1%" by wealth was an afterthought, as it was with most people who considered the question.) Here,
the Grio looks into who make up the "black 1 percent" ("The income cutoff to be a part of the top 1 percent was $646,195"). This
Guardian op-ed refers to "the top 1% of income earners," and ties this to Occupy Wall Street's slogan. At Wonkblog,
Suzy Khimm wanted to know "Who are the 1 percent?" ("Taken literally, the top 1 percent of American households had a minimum income of $516,633 in 2010"), and
Ezra Klein wanted to know "Who are the 99 percent?" ("Let’s be clear. This isn’t really the 99 percent. If you’re in the 85th percentile, for instance, your household is making more than $100,000, and you’re probably doing okay. If you’re in the 95th percentile, your household is making more than $150,000").
