The “99-percenters” protesting at Occupy Wall Street should think about occupying the C-suites across America as well, at least if their primary complaint is about income inequality.
CATHERINE RAMPELL
Dollars to doughnuts.
That is one implication of this fascinatingpaper on the occupations of the top 1 percent of Americans, which I came across via Mike Konczal. The paper is by Jon Bakija of Williams College, Adam Cole of the Treasury Department and Bradley T. Heim of Indiana University, and is based on tax data from 2005 (so, before the financial crisis).
It finds that about a third of Americans in that top percentile were executives, managers and supervisors who work outside of finance. The next biggest share, at 15.7 percent, went to medical professionals, followed by those in financial services with 13.9 percent.
| Percentage of primary taxpayers in top one percent of the distribution of income (excluding capital gains) that are in each occupation | |||||||||
| Occupation | 1979 | 1993 | 1997 | 1999 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 |
| Executives, managers, supervisors (non-finance) | 36 | 33.6 | 34.5 | 34.1 | 31.6 | 31.3 | 30.3 | 30.4 | 31 |
| Medical | 16.8 | 20.4 | 17.9 | 15.1 | 16.5 | 17.2 | 17.7 | 16.7 | 15.7 |
| Financial professions, including management | 7.7 | 10.6 | 11.9 | 13.1 | 13.5 | 13.2 | 13.1 | 13.6 | 13.9 |
| Lawyers | 7 | 8.9 | 7.7 | 7.3 | 8.3 | 8.5 | 8.9 | 8.8 | 8.4 |
| Computer, math, engineering, technical (nonfinance) | 3.8 | 3.3 | 4.2 | 5.5 | 5.1 | 4.9 | 5.4 | 4.6 | 4.6 |
| Not working or deceased | 5.2 | 3.3 | 4 | 4.2 | 3.8 | 4.1 | 3.5 | 3.9 | 4.3 |
| Skilled sales (except finance or real estate) | 4.6 | 4.1 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.2 |
| Blue collar or miscellaneous service | 4.2 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3 | 3.3 | 3.2 | 3.6 | 3.8 |
| Real estate | 1.9 | 1.4 | 1.8 | 2.6 | 2.6 | 2.9 | 2.6 | 3.1 | 3.2 |
| Business operations (nonfinance) | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.6 | 2.8 | 3.3 | 3 | 2.8 | 3.3 | 3 |
| Entrepreneur not elsewhere classified | 2.7 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 1.7 | 2.1 | 1.9 | 2.3 |
| Professors and scientists | 1.3 | 1.8 | 1.6 | 1.4 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.8 | 1.8 |
| Arts, media, sports | 1.6 | 2 | 1.7 | 2.1 | 2 | 1.7 | 2 | 1.7 | 1.6 |
| Unknown | 1.6 | 1.3 | 1 | 0.9 | 0.9 | 1 | 1.3 | 1.1 | 0.9 |
| Government, teachers, social services | 0.8 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.8 |
| Farmers & ranchers | 1.8 | 0.1 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Pilots | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.2 |
The share of 1-percenters who work in finance has been rising, as you can see. In 1979, the earliest year analyzed, just 7.7 percent of those at the top percentile worked in finance, about half the share in 2005.
