What does it mean to be in the 99%, or in the 1%?

What does it mean to be in the 99%, or in the 1%?

Let’s start with household income. The US Census Bureau has an annual breakdown of US household incomes, most recently published for 2010.

Was your household income over 100,000 in 2010? If so, you’re in the top 20 percent of all Americans.
More than 138,000?  You were in the top ten percent.

Had a really good year?
If you made over 180,000 in 2010, you were in the top 5 percent of all Americans.

(Source: (PDF) Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010, Table A-3.; HTML overview)

Finding that 1% mark is harder. Try this on for size:

According to the IRS, the top 1 percent of tax returns in 2008 started at an AGI of $380,354.  Mind you, that’s a minimum of $380K after all the allowable deductions - we can expect gross income is quite a bit higher.  For comparison, the IRS’s top ten percent starts at an AGI of $113K. (Source: http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0„id=102886,00.html)

Do your own math.  Where do you fall?