A couple of days ago There was an Occupy Wall Street protest outside my local Bank of America branch. I work and live in Marin County, California, a county that has the distinction of being both unusually affluent and (considering its affluence) unusually liberal.
I mentioned this protest to a friend and co-worker, Frank (not his real name). He scoffed. "Yeah, I saw some Occupy Protesters. I mean come on, you may not be the one percent, but you're the three percent." This bothered me, and I made a brief rebuttal about how even the top three percent were being taken advantage of.
As I stewed about this later, I realized there was a lot more I wished I had said. Frank is a smart man, and hardly a reactionary. Five minutes in a workplace corridor before a meeting doesn't really do this topic justice. I finally thought I might collect my thoughts and make my case as a diary (my first).
As I mentioned, my on-the-spot argument was to point out that compared to the top one percent, even the top three percent were basically getting the shaft. I'd been seeing a lot of charts like this one, so it seemed likely (and I remain convinced) that this was true.
Sure us "three percenters" might be living pretty easy compared to the rest, but does that mean we should just let those above us keep getting larger and larger piece of the pie? Eventually, the 97th percentile would be indistinguishable from the 90th.
I have to admit, I hate that sort of logic. "Feel sorry for me, I've been downgraded to 'only' the top ten percent." Beyond that, there is something distasteful about suggesting that all of these decisions should be based solely on material self-interest. I'm somewhat ashamed that was the first thing I thought of. I believe it to be true, but it isn't much of an argument.
My second idea was to question the premise that the protesters he had seen were, in fact, the top three percent. You can find median income information for Marin County here. Let's give Frank the benefit of the doubt and use the higher family income number.
In Marin County, the median family income is 111,166. According to the Tax Policy Center that puts the median income at roughly the 84th percentile. (Assuming you use the "total tax units" column. If you use the "married filing jointly" column, arguably a better match for family income, it would be the 72nd percentile.)
Even assuming that he ran into a group of people who had (well) above average income for the county (though I'm not sure why we would assume that occupy movement protesters would be particularly well-off), it seems unlikely they were, in fact, the "top three percent".
I'd like to point out something interesting here. I'm guessing Frank figures he, himself, is in the top three percent. Perhaps he is, I have no way of knowing, but if I had to guess, I'd say he wasn't. It was a flip remark. I'm sure he hadn't carefully calculated what percentile he was in. Still, I have a sneaking suspicion that if you asked a random sample of people what percentile they were in, they would guess high at a statistically significant rate.
People just want to believe that they are doing well. "I may not be a millionaire (yet), but the only thing preventing me from being wealthy is a few more years of hard work and wise investing. And once I'm rich, I don't want to pay that top tax rate, no sir."
It was only as I was turning out the light to go to sleep that night that I realized what was really upsetting me about Frank's reaction. Where is it written that only the poor can protest income inequality? Is it not just unlikely, but actually wrong for someone to act against their self-interests out of a sense of duty, of right and wrong?
His argument, is essentially the same as the conservative attack on Elizabeth Warren as a hypocrite for supporting the Occupy movement despite her personal affluence. Why shouldn't someone in the top three percent be against income inequality? Good for them.
The bewildering question to me is why Frank was so bothered by these people. His tone seemed to suggest that, for him, they were just playing at being protesters. They lacked "authenticity", since, in his mind, they weren't truly victims. My initial reaction, was to show that they were, indeed, victims of inequality. In other words, I bought into his thesis.
But on reflection, I disapprove of the whole premise, and nobody should buy into it. Nobody should have to prove their bona fides in order to speak out against a major injustice that has become deeply rooted in our society. Something is wrong. Let's fix it. All of us. Together.