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+--- Thread: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least some income today? (/showthread.php?tid=93632)
Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least some income today? - Mini 9 - 03-03-2010
What would you guess the percentage of people are that earn income on any given day in the USA?
Criteria:
Focus on PERSON and EARN.
1. Definition of person (human being, homo sapien)
a. took at least one breath today (could have been their first, could have been their last, or in between)
b. had both feet in the USA simultaneously at least one time today
2. Did something other than breathe TODAY, that someone else found valuable enough pay them. aka EARNed it.
3. Excludes people who get money for doing nothing TODAY, or something they did on a previous day, or something they agree to do at some point in the future.
4. Payment/earnings do not have to be disbursed today, can be an IOU, or a future check or transfer of money
5. Legal status of #2 above is immaterial. That is, a regular joe punching the clock at McDonald's shall be counted as ONE (person that earned income) today, just as much as a drug dealer who sold some crack, or a whore that turned a trick. These three examples all meet the PERSON who EARNed income today, in this discussion. They all had to get 'up' and do something to make 'money'. Even though prostitutes could lie in bed all day, this is still getting up to work, though not literally.
So, example of people that earned income include:
-politicians, doctors, ministers, poker players, amish farmers, janitors, prostitutes,crack dealers, sports analysts, web bloggers (some of them), eBayers (some of them).
-employees who come to work DO NOTHING and get paid. (still earned it, even if it was worthless)
-Even if it was 1/20 a cent value of a redeemable coupon.
People NOT earning income (again TODAY) include:
-babies (for the most part), people who normally work but are taking vacation, sick time, etc., most school children, some who are incapacitated, welfare who do not have even remedial tasks to perform, retirees, non-working spouses (unless the other spouse physically cuts a check to them and DOES something for it), hospital patients, etc. College students with no income earning job...TODAY.
Okay, so the above is just to frame the discussion, set its boundaries.
So, what percentage of people do you think earned an income today?
You'd have to know the percentages, I would say. Like how many pre-working aged 'kids' are there? How many working aged adults? Of those, how many earned income? How many retirees? (even if they get paid social security, welfare, retirements, drawing off of investments, etc. but did not EARN it today...not leading up to retirement for instance)
I know the baby boomers are a huge population HUMP. But many of them are at or into retirement age.
So, do you think 60% did NOT earn, 40% DID earn an income today?
What's your guess and why? Or source of data for determining this?
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least income today? - AlphaDog - 03-03-2010
Geez, we used to just gossip about the other people at most of my jobs.
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least income today? - Rick-o - 03-03-2010
Um... Could you repeat the question?
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least income today? - Mini 9 - 03-03-2010
A coworker is close to retirement and the topic of earning (and not earning) an income came up today.
It was hard to define at first, but we agreed that the above is a simple, fair (but odd) definition of earning and income. And then we wondered what percentage of the population earns anything on any given day.
Sorry, gossip is too easy.
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least income today? - ztirffritz - 03-03-2010
My guess would be 20-25%. Just shooting from the hip.
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least income today? - Mini 9 - 03-03-2010
Rick-o wrote:
Um... Could you repeat the question?
I'll PM it to you. read it slowly.
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least some income today? - decay - 03-03-2010
TL; DR
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least income today? - Mini 9 - 03-03-2010
ztirffritz wrote:
My guess would be 20-25%. Just shooting from the hip.
wow, and we thought we were being 'pessimistic' in saying only 40% earn any sort of income on any given day.
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least some income today? - davester - 03-03-2010
Lunch topic? This was posted at 4:34 pm pacific time. Where do you live, Hawaii?
Re: Lunch topic : what percentage of people earned at least some income today? - ztirffritz - 03-03-2010
(2009 est.) (from Wikipedia)
* 0–14 years: 20.2% - no income
(male 31,639,127/female 30,305,704)
* 15–64 years: 67.0% (this is the number to dissect)
(male 102,665,043/female 103,129,321)
* 65 years and over: 12.8% - probably no income
(male 16,901,232/female 22,571,696)
of the 67% of the population at an age where they might be earning income, we claim to have a 10% unemployment rate, but that number is actually low because that only represents people collecting benefits. Many people have expired benefits, or they never had a job to begin with. A staggering number of black males are in prison. (about .75% of the entire US Population is in prison, 2.3 million) Quite a few women still don't work outside of the home (many ARE working I assure you, just not earning an income) Given unemployment, prison population, and housewives, I'd say that knocks it down to at least 35%. I don't think 25% is such a stretch.