1. The median income of US families was about $37 000 in 1993. US Census Bureau, Income and Poverty, CD-ROM, table 3F (1993). The median income of UK households was about $16500 (The exchange rate used here is $1.6 to the pound) in 1990 at 1993 prices. See John Hills, Income and Wealth, vol. 2 (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Feb. 1995).
2. Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, The Millionaire Next Door (Atlanta, GA: 1997). Some scholars have suggested defining The rich’ not in terms of millions but rather as those with a family income over nine times the poverty line — in US terms about $95 000 a year in 1987. See S. Danziger, P. Gottschalk and E. Smolensky, ‘How The Rich Have Fared, 1973–87’, American Economic Review, vol. 72, no. 2 (May, 1989), p. 312.
3. The US Finance House Merrill Lynch in conjunction with Gemini Consulting, ‘World Wealth Report 1997’ (London: Merrill Lynch, 1997).
4. Stanley and Danko, The Millionaire Next Door, op. cit., p. 12.
5. US figures for 1995 from Arthur B. Kennickeil (board of governors of the Federal Reserve System) and R. Louise Woodburn, ‘Consistent Weight Design for the 1989, 1992 and 1995 SCF’s and the Distribution of Wealth’, revised July, 1997 unpublished. The UK figures are for 1993–4. For the UK figures, which include pensions, see Hills, Income and Wealth, op. cit., ch. 7.