2. Right now, before you go on: Write down what you believe to be your annual household income on a piece of scrap paper. This isn’t for anyone’s eyes but your own, since talking about one’s money is a bigger taboo in the U.S. than talking about sex or death. Use whatever “household” you would have to use if you were filing a FAFSA form– your parents, if they can still claim you as a dependent for tax purposes.
3. What’s a quintile? A quintile is a fifth of a total group. You’ve heard of percentiles, right? That’s hundredths of a total group. Remember standardized test results? If you scored at the 95th percentile on the ACT or SAT, you scored better than 95% of everyone taking the test. With a range of quantitative data, one can sort the data in sequence and then divide it resulting in an equal number of data points per group.
4. So imagine all households in the U.S. divided up into five sets with equal numbers of households per set.
5. The households have been sorted from those with the lowest annual income to those with the highest annual income.
6. If we want to discuss how socioeconomic status (SES) relates to health, it would be helpful to define terms for describing categories of people.
7. Take a moment and sketch this table on your scrap paper. Label the SES quintiles with terms you’d be comfortable using in class discussions.
8. Now make an X in the quintile within which you believe your annual household income falls. How do you believe yours compares to most households in the U.S.?
9. Let’s see how your labels and estimates compare with 2009 data:
10. In other words, 20% of households in the U.S. were getting by on less than $21,000/year in 2009. Only 20% of households in the U.S. bring in six figure incomes or higher– and that’s counting the income of all adults in the household.
11. Keep in mind, too: People who do not live in households– the homeless, incarcerated, and otherwise institutionalized– are omitted from the data. Most people who are homeless, incarcerated, and otherwise institutionalized have essentially no income. A sizable portion of the U.S. population exists beyond the left (poorest) category on our graph.
12. Census data on household income: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/cpstables/032010/hhinc/new05_000.htm
