se-alum;896275 wrote:In 2009, 12.1% of households made between 100-149K/yr. If you just assume half(which it's probably more) are 2-worker families, than around 6% of individuals make 125K a year.
I'm looking at
this link, which uses 2003 numbers and says that 16% of American families earn $100K or more. On our poll, I'd ballpark about 22-23% making over $100K. Considering (1) we're not a representative sample (more educated/affluent than average America), (2) these are 2003 numbers, so they're likely higher, (3) we're going to have self-selection bias, (4) we're pretty close to those numbers as it is, and (5) we're dealing with a small sample size--I think the poll numbers above are likely accurately reported. They don't jump out as immediately off-base.
If 20% of OCers claimed to make $500K or more, then sure, I'd be suspicious. But I wouldn't be surprised if 20% of the people responding to this poll are some combination of doctors, lawyers, engineers, small business owners, etc. who make an upper-middle class income.