{"id":20870,"date":"2026-06-13T11:36:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T19:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/?p=20870"},"modified":"2026-06-12T17:28:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T01:28:31","slug":"media-a-100k-income-in-1996-was-about-top-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/2026\/06\/13\/media-a-100k-income-in-1996-was-about-top-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Media: A $100k income in 1996 &#8230; was about top 1%"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/finance.yahoo.com\/economy\/articles\/dollar-general-ceo-exposes-bitter-013700778.html\">Dollar General CEO exposes bitter reality about today&#8217;s economy<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, yes but&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thirty years ago, having a six-figure income meant you could live comfortably, with all the accoutrements of wealth.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A $100,000 income in 1996 put you in the top 1% or 2% of income earners. This was not a common income level. <strong>No surprise, there were few shoppers at Dollar General with $100k incomes because there were very few people with $100k incomes in 1996! DUH!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Today, $100,000 income puts one on the top 30% of income earners<\/strong> (due to the government using inflation to devalue the dollar). And by household income, i<strong>n 2026, about 50% of all households have an annual income of greater than $100k.<\/strong> With half the country now at that income level, <strong>basic math means Dollar General has more customers at that income level. DUH.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Reporter Madison Troyer follows the doomerism playbook, negativity and self loathing about the U.S. and an inability to think critically. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Terrible reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,30,352],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-media-propaganda","category-misinformation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20883,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20870\/revisions\/20883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coldstreams.com\/social\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}