A few years back, sociologists Thomas Hirschl and Mark Rank reviewed 44 years of US household and individual income data. For instance, they looked at the percentage of Americans who had reached the top income quintile at some point before the age of 60, as well as how many years total and consecutively they spent at the top. Check it out:
Source: Hirschl TA, Rank MR (2015) The Life Course Dynamics of Affluence. PLOS ONE 10(1): e0116370. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116370 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0116370
So by the age of 60, 11.1% of the US population will have spent at least a year in the top 1% and a whopping 69.8% will have spent at least a year in the top 20% of the US income distribution. Ok, we’re talking about income not wealth – but this still means that a sizable number of US households eventually achieve a degree of comfort and security in their lifetimes. What some would call the American Dream.