How the Mighty Have Fallen

Just who is "rich" in America is a matter of considerable disagreement. No one disputes that Bill Gates (No. 1 on last year's Forbes 400 list with a net worth of $57 billion) and Warren Buffett (No. 2 at $50 billion) are wealthy or, indeed, that everyone on the Forbes list qualifies (the poorest had a net worth of $1.3 billion). But as you move from billions in net worth to the mere hundreds or many tens of millions, and then to annual incomes of the mere hundreds of thousands, the arguing begins.

In April, The Wall Street Journal ran an article sympathetically portraying families with incomes around $250,000, the level that President Obama has targeted for tax increases. By most measures, these families rank in the top 2 percent to 4 percent of the income spectrum. But many—possibly most—see themselves as "upper middle class" and not "rich," the paper reported.

"I'm not after sympathy," said the wife of a surgeon who makes about $260,000. "What I want is a reality check on what rich means. I can pay my mortgage and can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury." The mayor of San Jose scoffed at $250,000. That's what a two-engineer couple might make, he said. It put them in "the upper working class" and wasn't enough to "buy a home in Silicon Valley."

The article triggered an outpouring of e-mails—many applauding that someone had finally described their harried plight; others sarcastically wondering what planet the whiners lived on. But so much angst among the affluent—however defined—attests to something else: the present recession, unlike any other since World War II, has deeply shaken the nation's economic elite.

With secure jobs and ample incomes, the rich and the near rich are supposed to be insulated from economic slumps. Well, not this time. Many feel fearful, threatened, and impoverished. In a recent Unity Marketing survey of consumers with incomes exceeding $250,000, 60 percent said their financial situation had deteriorated; 39 percent said bonuses or commissions had been cut; 29 percent said their regular income had been reduced; 8 percent said they'd lost their jobs; and 4 percent said their hours had been reduced. Even with a partial stock-market rebound, many of America's most affluent feel vulnerable to layoffs and lost income, just like other Americans. "This has been an equal-opportunity recession," argues Pam Danziger of Unity Marketing.

Collateral damage is widespread. Sales at luxury chains have fallen sharply; same-store revenues for Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus dropped about 25 percent in recent quarters. Many country clubs are struggling to hold members. In New York's Hamptons, unsold homes reached a 34-month supply early this year at the prevailing sales pace; buyers had hibernated. Economist Susan Sterne, a specialist in consumer spending, calls it "the demise of luxury... the people who buy $3,000 Gucci handbags. You see it in the luxury-car market and housing."

Some causes are obvious. With the recession's epicenter on Wall Street, layoffs and bonus reductions among highly paid investment bankers, traders, and money managers have thinned the ranks of the rich. The plunge in share prices has especially hurt the wealthy, because they disproportionately own stocks.

But something bigger may also be happening. In a new study, economists Jonathan Parker and Annette Vissing--Jorgensen of Northwestern University find that—contrary to conventional wisdom—income losses in recessions are proportionately greater for the well-to-do than for middle-income households. By their estimates, the relative income loss for the top 10 percent of the population is 26 percent larger than for the average household. For the top 1 percent, the contrast is even starker. Their proportionate loss is more than double—that is, if the average household had an income loss of 10 percent, the top 1 percent would lose more than 20 percent.

That doesn't mean they suffer more hardship. It's almost certainly tougher for a family with an income of $50,000 to adjust to a $5,000 loss (10 percent) than it is for a family with $1 million to compensate for a $200,000 drop (20 percent). And the poor experience the highest joblessness. Still, the increased economic vulnerability of the upper classes is a change from the past. Before the 1980s, the conventional wisdom was true, Parker and Vissing--Jorgensen say. Higher income conferred more stability.