This is a little 5-question quiz in the NYT.
One of the questions is "In your view, being 'rich' means having an income in the ..." — with various choices: "top 25%, top 20%, top 15%, top 10%, top 5%, top 1%." So the answer you get to "Are you rich?" is based on your own definition of who is rich. I only need to make $153,000 to be in the top 5% where I live and only $175,000 to be in the top 5% in the NYC metropolitan area. Who thinks they're rich if they make $175,000 in NYC? Can you even afford a 1-bedroom apartment?!
From the article accompanying the quiz:
The NYT quiz seems to think that too, but I'm with Fitzgerald. There's more to it than money, though some people have so much money that, of course, you call them rich, no matter what their other attributes are. But the quiz tries to set a line: Make $175,000 and you're rich. But it takes no responsibility because that 5th question puts it on you to define rich.
Now, that 5th question does let you bail out and answer "don't know/none of these." When I asked Meade if he thought we were rich, he said yes and it was because "Everyone in America is rich." It's all a matter of perspective. If you give the "don't know/none of these" answer on the NYT quiz, it will tell you — instead of "You're rich" or "You're not rich" — "You’ll have to decide for yourself if you’re rich or not."
"Now that you know who you are/What do you want to be?"
(Does the "scientist" in the video look familiar? Look closely, guess, then click here to see his father's last name.)
One of the questions is "In your view, being 'rich' means having an income in the ..." — with various choices: "top 25%, top 20%, top 15%, top 10%, top 5%, top 1%." So the answer you get to "Are you rich?" is based on your own definition of who is rich. I only need to make $153,000 to be in the top 5% where I live and only $175,000 to be in the top 5% in the NYC metropolitan area. Who thinks they're rich if they make $175,000 in NYC? Can you even afford a 1-bedroom apartment?!
From the article accompanying the quiz:
The researchers found that a “vast majority” of their respondents believed they were poorer, relative to others, than they actually were. The people who thought they were right in the middle of the income distribution – perfectly middle class, you might say — were, on average, closer to the 75th percentile. And as a group, respondents whose incomes actually resembled the true median thought they were closer to the bottom fourth....People are looking at outward manifestations of wealth and thinking about their own capacity to buy things. The perspectives are different. Also, we think about social class, and in that view, "The Rich" are those other people. F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said "The rich are different from you and me," and some people like to think that Ernest Hemingway retorted, "Yes, they have more money," and that "they have more money" is the right answer and also what they'd have retorted if they'd been there at the time.
The NYT quiz seems to think that too, but I'm with Fitzgerald. There's more to it than money, though some people have so much money that, of course, you call them rich, no matter what their other attributes are. But the quiz tries to set a line: Make $175,000 and you're rich. But it takes no responsibility because that 5th question puts it on you to define rich.
Now, that 5th question does let you bail out and answer "don't know/none of these." When I asked Meade if he thought we were rich, he said yes and it was because "Everyone in America is rich." It's all a matter of perspective. If you give the "don't know/none of these" answer on the NYT quiz, it will tell you — instead of "You're rich" or "You're not rich" — "You’ll have to decide for yourself if you’re rich or not."
"Now that you know who you are/What do you want to be?"
(Does the "scientist" in the video look familiar? Look closely, guess, then click here to see his father's last name.)
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