Why Don’t the 1 Percent Feel Rich?
But another part of it is status anxiety. Not just conspicuous consumption, though there is plenty of that. Rather, it’s the terror that their kids will fall behind. That if they don’t get their toddler into the right preschool, they’ll blow any chance of getting them into Harvard. So they spend ungodly sums on tuition, tutors, and enrichment activities to try to keep up with the other 1 percenters in the college admissions arms race. There’s a perverse logic to it all: the richer the 1 percent get, the higher the cost of falling out. And that’s why the “bottom of the 1 percent” in particular aren’t getting wealthier. They’re making more, but they’re also spending more on their kids.