True that...
While some athletes do make an obnoxious amount of money for what they do, I doubt anyone of them are in the top 1% tax bracket either. Plus, if you somehow can't perform your duties you don't get a bonus of $24 Million.
well, with all due respect VB, that is not true...i am assuming that you do not pay much attention to the business of sport out of lack of interest, (please note, i am just assuming that sporting business is simply not something that occupies a great deal of your thought/time as an important part of your life...no insult intended)
the top 1% "tax bracket" does not really exist...
there really is only 1 way to interpret the "top 1%"...and that is the richest three million people in this country (roughly 1% of the populus)
the top tax bracket is 35% federal, for those earning over $372,950 per year and up
-the minimum salary for a major league baseball player is $390,000 (that is to say, anybody playing in the major leagues regularly, cannot earn less than that) which means that every major league baseball player is in the top federal tax bracket.
- the minimum salary for an NBA basketball player, for 2009-2010, starts at
$442,000 dollars for a player with zero years in the league...the minimum increases for every year spent in the league: for example:
years of service.....minimum salary
1.............736,420
2............825,497
3............855,189
4............884,881
5............959,111
6............1,033,342
7............1,107,572
8............1,181,803
9............1,187,686
10+........1,306,455
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NFL Minimum salary
2009
yrs served....min salary
0..........310,000
1..........385,000
2.........460,000
3.........535,000
4-6......620,000
7-9......745,000
10+......845,000
The average salary per player for the three major sports leagues above are:
MLB - $3.15 million (2008)
NBA - $5.356 million (2009)
NFL - $1.1 million (2009)
plus, each of those athletes receive a pension fund after they retire
as for someone not performing their duties getting bonuses, well, that is not true either...all contracts in the NBA and MAjor League Baseball are "Guaranteed"...the NFL is the only one where the full portion of salary is not guaranteed, due to the relevance of injury, but even still, usually %60 is guaranteed.
i would say, that anyone who plays in any of the three sports leagues mentioned above, for a minimum period of time of about 2-3 years, would be in the top 1% of americans in terms of wealth.
in the NFL there are for last year at least 25 players making over $12 million and hundreds more making in the 1-5 million, and 5-10 million dollar range (don't forget, there are roughly 1700 NFL players at any one time)
the baltimore ravens football team alone, has 22 players earning between 1 and 10 million dollars a year. another 14 players earn between 500k to 1 million a year.
(this is an interesting sortable salary matrix for all nfl players and teams)
Baltimore-Ravens Salaries | Baltimore-Ravens Player Salaries | 2009 Baltimore-Ravens Salary
this is the same in terms of baseball salaries and teams (sortable)
the baltimore orioles baseball team has 9 players earning between 1 and 8 million a year
Baltimore-Orioles Salaries | Baltimore-Orioles Player Salaries | 2009 Baltimore-Orioles Salary
the LA Lakers basketball team has 11 players earning between 2 and 24 million a year
Los-Angeles-Lakers Salaries | Los-Angeles-Lakers Player Salaries | 2009 Los-Angeles-Lakers Salary
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with regards to the actual ownership of wealth in this country with rregards to the gist of the thread, i would say this chart depicts it very accurately in this survey by the Federal Reserve Board from 2004
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/Wealth2004.gif
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the top 1% of this country is referred to as the "Upper" or "Capitalist" class.
it is defined most recently, by these scholars, Thompson and Hickey. and Beeghley in two different studies
Thompson/Hickey -
Upper Class = 1%
income of $500,000+ a year
Beeghley -
"Super Rich" = 1% (.9% actually)
income of $350,000+ a year
pretty much all athletes, even the barest minimum that play in these leagues for any time over 2-3 years are among the richest 1% of this nation.
there are only about 15,000 total americans who earn over $9.5 million a year in this country...a great many of them are pro athletes