Capital in the Twenty-First Century

by Thomas Piketty

In the poorer half of the top decile, we are truly in the world of managers: 80–90 percent of income comes from compensation for labor.7 Moving up to the next 4 percent, the share of income from labor decreases slightly but remains clearly dominant at 70–80 percent of total income in the interwar period as well as today (see Figures 8.3 and 8.4). In this large “9 percent” group (that is, the upper decile exclusive of the top centile), we find mainly individuals living primarily on income from labor, including both private sector managers and engineers and senior officials and teachers from the public sector. Here, pay is usually 2 to 3 times the average wage for society as a whole: if average wages are 2,000 euros a month, in other words, this group earns 4,000–6,000 a month.