Working Class Millionaires
The New York Times has a fascinating article about high net-worth people in the Silicon valley (1-5ish million dollars) who nonetheless feel “relative deprivation” compared to their inordinately wealthy neighbors and colleagues. This is about as good of an example one is going to get of the phenomenon Robert Frank discusses. This line at the end captures the essence of what happens when people with rough social, cultural and educational equality have wide gaps in their wealth:
“Here, the top 1 percent chases the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and the top one-tenth of 1 percent chases the top one-one-hundredth of 1 percent,” he said.
“You try not to get caught up in it,” he added, “but it’s hard not to.”
I wrote about this clash of the top 1 percent vs the top 1/10 percent pretty extensively a little while ago. This is the face of American inequality.
I’m waiting for Will Wilkinson to tell us all why relative deprivation isn’t all that important, but until then, feel the plight of the lowly working class millionaires.
