13% Make Over $100k in 2008

A $100k salary is not what it used to be.

• In 1984, a $100k salary put you in the top 1% of the workforce.
• In 2008, a $100k salary put you in the top 13%.

Here are where the data comes from: On July 8, 2008 the Tax Foundation published the latest federal individual income tax data as reported by the IRS for the years 1980 thru 2006. We used these data to estimate the numbers for 2008, and to estimate how many earned more than $100,000. Here's a summary from their Table 7 - "Dollar Cut-Off, 1980-2006 (Minimum AGI for tax return to fall into various percentiles)" along with our estimates (an extrapolation of the data) for the year 2008:

	1%	5%	10%	13%	25%	50%
Act. 1984	$100,889	$55,423	$43,956		$29,360	$15,998
Act. 1996	$227,546	$101,141	$74,986		$45,757	$23,174
Act. 2005	$364,657	$145,283	$103,912		$62,068	$30,881
Est. 2008	$362,000	$156,000	$112,000	$100,000	$66,000	$33,000

How the data plotted for 2008

1%	of the workforce makes over	$362,000
2%	of the workforce makes over	$255,000	(Close to the Obama $250k benchmark)
3%	of the workforce makes over	$205,000
5%	of the workforce makes over	$156,000
10%	of the workforce makes over	$112,000
13%	of the workforce makes over	$100,000	(The traditional $100k benchmark)

Salary factors by industry

The percent over $100k for each industry was estimated from BLS data. Here's a summary:

13.0%		Total nonfarm
12.9%		Natural resources and mining
12.8%		Construction
13.5%		Manufacturing
14.0%		Wholesale trade
12.5%		Retail trade
15.8%		Information
13.1%		Financial activities
13.1%		Finance and insurance
13.1%		Real estate and rental and leasing
13.2%		Professional and business services
10.8%		Educational services
11.8%		Health care and social assistance
13.0%		Leisure and hospitality
11.8%		Other services
7.9%		Government