Maine has some of the nation’s poorest rich people, think tank finds

Billionaire Mitchell Rales built this mansion and associated buildings in Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island in 2010. The structures and the 4.6-acre lot they sit on have a total assessed value of $24.5 million. (BDN file photo)

Billionaire Mitchell Rales built this mansion and associated buildings in Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island in 2010. The structures and the 4.6-acre lot they sit on have a total assessed value of $24.5 million. (BDN file photo)

The left-wing think tank Economic Policy Institute produced an analysis of wealth distribution in each of the 50 states — plus Washington, D.C. — in an effort to illustrate the country’s increasing income inequality. In short, that the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider, and that fewer and fewer people have a greater and greater percentage of nation’s wealth.

In its analysis, the institute developed a map of the country showing how much one would need to make in each state to reach that state’s proverbial 1 percent of wealth owners.

Slate magazine built off the institute’s figures by developing a map of its own, showing what percentage of the overall income in each state is earned by that 1 percent.

A yacht belonging to former "Tonight Show" host Johnny Carson is seen docked in Bangor in 2002. (BDN photo contributed by Charlie Mitchell)

A yacht belonging to former “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson is seen docked in Bangor in 2002. (BDN photo contributed by Charlie Mitchell)

Very generally speaking, the lower the numbers in both cases, the more evenly wealth is distributed in a given state.

In Maine, the two organizations show that the state has some of the nation’s poorest rich people. To reach the Pine Tree State’s 1 percent, one must scrape by on only $274,000 annually, less than all but six other states.

In Connecticut, by comparison, one would need to be hauling in $678,000 every year in order to reach that 1 percent echelon.

Slate found that just 14.8 percent of income in Maine is funneled to the richest 1 percent, a figure lower than every state but Hawaii, Alaska and West Virginia.

In New York, 32.8 percent of the income statewide — just a hair less than a full third of it — goes to the top 1 percent of the earners.

But Slate senior business and economics writer Jordan Weissmann cautions not to assume life is better for more people in states with low 1 percent thresholds or income distribution percentages. He noted that some of the state’s with the higher numbers — like Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey — also have lower-than-average poverty rates, better life expectancy and better education systems.

Meanwhile, some low number states like West Virginia, Mississippi, New Mexico and Alabama “suffer from widespread, intractable poverty or terribly low rates of economic mobility,” Weissmann wrote.

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