The Occupy Toronto protesters were protesting the supposedly lavish lifestyles of the so-called 1%. I was amazed to read in Toronto Life that the income threshold for the 1% is $196,000 a year. That might seem like a lot, but it’s not out of reach for most households where mom and dad work in the mid-to-senior ranks of a tier-one marketing company or financial services firm. In other words, a lot of Ellisism readers are in the 1%. Good for you. I don’t think the protesters were focusing on the lower-lever 1-percenters.
Copyright prohibits me from posting the article, but it’s worth tracking down before this issue leaves the newsstands. The authors divulge the spending habits and financial woes of five households surviving on approximately this amount. If there is any lesson to be learned from these case studies, it’s the old adage “It’s not what you earn, it’s what you spend that will kill you.”
See: Almost Rich (Toronto Life)
An income of $196,000 places you in the country’s top one per cent of earners. But does it make you wealthy? An examination of the true cost of city living and why rich is never rich enough Essay by Jonathan Kay; interviews by Maggie Gilmour and Jasmine Budak
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