What is rich?
No, I’m not referring to rich in spirit. This is a money question.
The last time I saw this issue discussed in terms I can relate to was the 1970s and ’80s in Forbes. It seems that the Forbes family and I hold identical views on the matter. Too bad my wife does not. She’ll mention someone being “rich,” I’ll laugh out loud, and then an ever shorter discussion ensues.
I’m reminded of this by two posts from fellow guest blogger Jon. In the first post, Jon feels poor because he has accumulated few assets. In the second post, he feels rich because he has done a favorable income comparison.
I always associated wealth with assets (and estates) and was surprised to find that the North American pop culture equated wealth with income. People, like my dear wife, use “rich” to mean “high income.”
Some income, rentier income, is certainly wealth - it’s based on intellectual or physical property. Wage-slavery income is, of course, a temporary blessing subject to the whims of fate.
High wages are fleeting - circumstances inevitably change.
Forbes had a special description of moneyed people and in those days it returned to this paradigm in issue after issue. There was the “high net worth” crowd, and then there was the “high net income” crowd.
I think they must have had these terms tacked up in the editorial meeting rooms.
There were studies that showed you could not market to these two groups the same way, Forbes noted. The high income people were undisciplined, short-term oriented, poorly networked, ignorant of investing, lacking in time and energy, and very much into self-gratification. The high net worth crowd were shrewd, thoughtful, patient, networked, analytical, and to some extent, teachable (where complex sales were involved).
Here, by way of personal research, are my two favorite conversations with one high net worth friend from the 1980s (who earned a small income fooling around with an antiques business): (1) “Dimitri, what this town needs is a cheaper shoe repairman.” That was a staple of our conversation. Also, (2) “Dimitri, I found the cheapest place to get those old station wagons you and I love to drive: the bulletin boards of the local nursing homes. They drive them in but they don’t drive them out.” This built on our mutual penchant for buying rebuilt Chevy wagons from the corner garage.
You might eventually give up marketing to a mindset like that. If you did, there would be only one flavor of “rich” left.
Back then, I got the sense that it pained Forbes to refer to high net income people as “rich” but it was a concession they had to make to communicate in the general culture. For a while, they preserved this distinction.
Now - outside of Forbes’ wealthiest compilation lists - I don’t see the term “rich” being used in any other way except to denote “earning a lot”. Assuming the high net worth gang are out of the picture, are the high net earnings crowd spending all their salary or accumulating assets (= becoming rich)? There’s a new, potentially useful distinction for you. You’re welcome to it, marketers.
Meanwhile, if you search on Forbes’ website now, you get this message: Sorry, your search for “high net worth individual” did not return any documents.
Sorry indeed!
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