A professor at a university asked her business students a seemingly innocent question and was surprised by the results. Some social media users were outraged.
Nina Strohminger, a legal studies and business law professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, wanted to know what her pupils thought was the average income of an American worker. She found that 25 percent believed the average salary to be six figures. One person said $800,000.
“I asked Wharton students what they thought the average American worker makes per year and 25% of them thought it was over six figures,”Last week, Strohminger tweeted. “One of them thought it was $800k. Really not sure what to make of this (The real number is $45k).”
A lot of folks made plenty of it. And a Twitter class war was on.
“People who are wealthy don’t understand the economic realities of life.” wrote one poster.
Wharton, a prestigious business school ranked No. 2 in the nation, estimates the first-year budget of its MBA program is more than $100,000, including room, board, books and fees. The average annual salary in the U.S. last year was $53,383, according to the Social Security Administration.
“It tells you that these Wharton graduates grew up in privilege” wrote another Twitter user.
The instructor later wrote, “A lot of people want to conclude that this says something special about Wharton students — I’m not sure it does. This kind of estimation is notoriously difficult for people who think the gap between rich & poor is smaller than it really is.