How much money would you need to call yourself rich?

[DC Al Fine]

Enough assets to maintain a very nice standard of living forever. I'd consider $5k/month post tax with a paid off house "very nice". That should be enough to maintain a place, have a nice car, pursue expensive hobbies, take trips and so on.

That level of income requires about $70 000 of pre-tax income in my province. assuming it's from a mix of dividends and capital gains. Using the 4% rule, I'd need $1 750 000 to generate that income. Throw in $250 000 for an average house in my city, and you get $2 million.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

For the wealthy, placement on the basic class hierarchy and open parasitism (i.e. unearne income) matter far more than "earned" income.

Most wealthy people have actual jobs/careers, Snowstalker (unless you think the likes of Mitt Romney or the Forbest 400 are representative of most people).

They nonetheless live primarily off what is produced by the labor of others.

So do cashiers at McDonald's.

Their position is necessary for their own survival and not exploitative, however. Parasites have power.

[ElectionsGuy]

I consider any individual making >$100K rich. >$150K for a family.

[Deus Naturae]

For the wealthy, placement on the basic class hierarchy and open parasitism (i.e. unearne income) matter far more than "earned" income.

Most wealthy people have actual jobs/careers, Snowstalker (unless you think the likes of Mitt Romney or the Forbest 400 are representative of most people).

They nonetheless live primarily off what is produced by the labor of others.

So do cashiers at McDonald's.

Their position is necessary for their own survival and not exploitative, however. Parasites have power.

Except that you're claiming that those "parasites" are parasitic because they consume goods produced with the labor of others. By the logic you've put forth in this thread, everyone who isn't a subsistence farmer or a hunter-gatherer is a parasite.

[angus]

I'd define it in terms of stock, not flow.  I don't buy into this "above $300K per year" or anything like that as in idea of rich.  Rich implies independent.  Even attorneys, surgeons, and engineers aren't my idea of rich, unless they were already rich and are just working for actualization of the self, or because they think they can contribute to society.  There are of course rich people who work--George W. Bush is rich, even though he worked as a Governor and President; Mitt Romney is rich, etc.--but generally even the very poorest of the rich have enough capital to comfortably support themselves and their families until the youngest of them dies, independent of any work they do.

[muon2]

I'd define it in terms of stock, not flow.  I don't buy into this "above $300K per year" or anything like that as in idea of rich.  Rich implies independent.  Even attorneys, surgeons, and engineers aren't my idea of rich, unless they were already rich and are just working for actualization of the self, or because they think they can contribute to society.  There are of course rich people who work--George W. Bush is rich, even though he worked as a Governor and President; Mitt Romney is rich, etc.--but generally even the very poorest of the rich have enough capital to comfortably support themselves and their families until the youngest of them dies, independent of any work they do.

Wouldn't that independence then translate into an outflow of cash instead of a throughput of cash from income? Either way one can estimate it in term of a flow.

[angus]

Yes, it would amount to a (negative) flow if no investment income was present, and I recognize the possibility that rich is not necessarily a permanent condition.  One can be rich now but not later, or rich later but not now.  I guess I just don't use the term rich to describe my neighbors, all of whom have household incomes in the upper quintile.  Whether I'd use it for the top five percent, I can't say.  If your income is a fifth of a million dollars annually, but you were already the King of Spain and could live with or without that fifth of a million, then you're rich.  In that case, the rich doesn't get determined by the fact that you have money coming in, but precisely by the fact that you can spend as much as you want, whether or not you have income, and know, beyond any doubt, that there will always be more when you want it.  You might not even use money.  The truly rich may live their entire lives without ever a coin soiling their fingers.  Now that's my idea of rich.

To me, rich is honey.  It is chocolate mousse.  It is absinthe and ale and blueberry milkshakes.  It can be sickeningly sweet or over-the-top savory, but it isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Some people like "rich" things.  In Puerto Rico I noticed signs advertising "Tortas, muy ricas" on little food wagons and such.  Even here we are, multiple times daily, bombarded with television ads ensuring us that Velveeta has the rich, cheesy taste guaranteed by "real milk."  Before it became illegal to do so, the Marlboro Man informed us of the richness in the smoke of his product.  

I sometimes say "We are rich!" when I look into the refrigerator just after a shopping spree and I see the box stuffed with colorful goodness.  We went to Aldi and the Asian Market just this morning, and upon opening the door I can see broccoli, peppers, tofu, beef, chicken, green beans, tortillas, hummus, shrimp, lettuce, tomatoes, jalapeños, salty duck eggs, pickled cucumbers, thai chiles, Gatorade, hot sauce, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  By next Friday it won't look so rich any more, but that's okay.  In these instances, rich is good.  It means plenty.  It means choice.  It means liberty.  I can choose beans or corn, or I can choose both.  I can choose fish or tofu, or both.  I'm not walking down into the basement hoping that the only bottle of wine I have left will pair well with what my wife is cooking, only to be disappointed that I have just one left and it's a Primitivo when I'd been hoping for a sturdy Rioja to go with my roasted duck.  Rather, I know that I have at least seven bottles from which to choose, ranging from a delicate Pinot Noir to a hearty Languedoc-Rousillon.

But if we're talking about "rich people" then I can't say that it naturally occurs to me to include wage laborers, be they lawyers or laundrymen, judges or janitors, surgeons or sailors, and as I understood the question, it called for unabashed normative propositions.  Accordingly, I do not think that any answers in this thread may be reasonably deemed incorrect.