WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not just the wealthiest 1 percent.Fully20 percent of U.S. adults become
rich for parts of their lives,wielding outsize influence on America’s economy and politics.
Thislittle-known group may pose the biggest barrier to reducing the nation’sincome inequality.The
growing numbers of the U.S. poor have beenwell documented, but survey data provided to The Associated
Pressdetail the flip side of the record income gap — the rise of the "newrich."Made up largely
of older professionals, working marriedcouples and more educated singles, the new rich are those with
householdincome of $250,000 or more at some point during their working lives.That puts them, if
sometimes temporarily, in the top 2 percent ofearners.Even outside periods of unusual wealth, members of
thisgroup generally hover in the $100,000-plus income range, keeping them inthe top 20 percent of
earners.Companies increasingly aremarketing to this rising demographic, fueling a surge of "mass
luxury"products and services from premium Starbucks coffee and organicgroceries to concierge
medicine and VIP lanes at airports. Politicalparties are taking a renewed look at the up-for-grabs
group, oncesolidly Republican.They’re not the traditional rich.In acountry where poverty is at a record
high, today’s new rich are notablefor their sense of economic fragility. They’ve reached the top
2percent, only to fall below it, in many cases. That makes them much morefiscally conservative than
other Americans, polling suggests, and lesslikely to support public programs, such as food stamps or
early publiceducation, to help the disadvantaged.Last week, President BarackObama asserted that growing
inequality is "the defining challenge of ourtime," signaling that it will be a major theme for
Democrats in nextyear’s elections.New research suggests that affluent Americansare more numerous than
government data depict, encompassing 21 percentof working-age adults for at least a year by the time
they turn 60. Thatproportion has more than doubled since 1979.At the same time, an increasing
polarization of low-wage work and high-skill jobs has left middle-income careers depleted."Formany
in this group, the American dream is not dead. They have reachedaffluence for parts of their lives and
see it as very attainable, evenif the dream has become more elusive for everyone else," says Mark
Rank,a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, who calculatednumbers on the affluent for a
forthcoming book, "Chasing the AmericanDream," to be published by the Oxford University
Press.As thefastest-growing group based on take-home pay, the new rich tend to enjoybetter schools,
employment and gated communities, making it easier topass on their privilege to their children.Their
success has implications for politics and policy.Thegroup is more liberal than lower-income groups on
issues such asabortion and gay marriage, according to an analysis of General SocialSurvey data by the
AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. But whenit comes to money, their views aren’t so open.
They’re wary of anygovernment role in closing the income gap.In Gallup polling inOctober, 60 percent of
people making $90,000 or more said averageAmericans already had "plenty of opportunity" to get
ahead. Among thosemaking less than $48,000, the share was 48 percent."In thiscountry, you don’t get
anywhere without working hard," said James Lott,28, a pharmacist in Renton, Wash., who adds to his
six-figure salary byday-trading stocks. The son of Nigerian immigrants, Lott says he wasable to get
ahead by earning an advanced pharmacy degree. He makesnearly $200,000 a year.After growing up on food
stamps, Lott nowsplurges occasionally on nicer restaurants, Hugo Boss shoes and extendedvacations to New
Orleans, Atlanta and parts of Latin America. Hebelieves government should play a role in helping the
disadvantaged. Buthe says the poor should be encouraged to support themselves, explainingthat his single
mother rose out of hardship by starting a day-carebusiness in their home."I definitely don’t see
myself as rich,"says Lott, who is saving to purchase a downtown luxury condominium. Thatwill be the
case, he says, "the day I don’t have to go to work everysingle day."___Sometimes referred to
by marketers as the"mass affluent," the new rich make up roughly 25 million U.S. householdsand
account for nearly 40 percent of total U.S. consumer spending.Whilepaychecks shrank for most Americans
after the 2007-2009 recession,theirs held steady or edged higher. In 2012, the top 20 percent of
U.S.households took home a record 51 percent of the nation’s income. Themedian income of this group is
more than $150,000.Onceconcentrated in the old-money enclaves of the Northeast, the new richare now
spread across the U.S., mostly in bigger cities and theirsuburbs. They include Washington, D.C.; Boston,
Los Angeles, New York,San Francisco and Seattle. By race, whites are three times more likelyto reach
affluence than nonwhites.Paul F. Nunes, managingdirector at Accenture’s Institute for High Performance
and Research,calls this group "the new power brokers of consumption." Because theyspend just
60 percent of their before-tax income, often setting the restaside for retirement or investing, he says
their capacity to spend morewill be important to a U.S. economic recovery.In Miami,developers are
betting on a growing luxury market, building higher-endmalls featuring Cartier, Armani and Louis Vuitton
and hoping to expandon South Florida’s Bal Harbour, a favored hideaway of the rich."It’snot that I
don’t have money. It’s more like I don’t have time," saidDeborah Sponder, 57, walking her dog Ava
recently along Miami’sblossoming Design District. She was headed to one of her two artgalleries — this
one between the Emilio Pucci and Cartier stores andclose to the Louis Vuitton and Hermes storefronts.But
Spondersays she doesn’t consider her income of $250,000 as upper class, notingthat she is paying college
tuition for her three children. "Betweenrent, schooling and everything — it comes in and goes
out."Economistssay the group’s influence will only grow as middle-class families belowthem
struggle. Corporate profits and the stock market are hittingrecords while the median household income of
$51,000 is at its lowestsince 1995. That’s a boon for upper-income people who are more likely toinvest
in stocks.At the same time, some 54 percent ofworking-age Americans will experience near-poverty for
portions of theirlives, hurt by globalization and the loss of good-paying manufacturingjobs.___Both
Democrats and Republicans are awakening to the political realities presented by this new demographic
bubble.TraditionallyRepublican, the group makes up more than 1 in 4 voters and is now morepolitically
divided, better educated and less white and male than in thepast, according to Election Day exit polls
dating to the 1970s.Sixty-ninepercent of upper-income voters backed Republican Ronald Reagan and
hissupply-side economics of tax cuts in 1984. By 2008, Democrat BarackObama had split their vote evenly,
49-49.In 2012, Obama lost thegroup, with 54 percent backing Republican Mitt Romney. Still,
Obama’sperformance among higher-income voters exceeded nearly every Democratbefore him.Some Democratic
analysts have urged the party to treadmore lightly on issues of income inequality, even after the
recentelection of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who made the issue histop campaign priority.In
recent weeks, media attention has alsofocused on growing liberal enthusiasm for Sen. Elizabeth
Warren,D-Mass., whose push to hold banks and Wall Street accountable couldstoke Occupy Wall Street-style
populist anger against the rich."Forthe Democrats’ part, traditional economic populism is poorly
suited foraffluent professionals," says Alan Abramowitz, an Emory Universityprofessor who
specializes in political polarization.The new rich includes Robert Kane, 39, of Colorado Springs,
Colo.Aformer stock broker who once owned three houses and voted steadfastlyRepublican, Kane says he was
humbled after the 2008 financial meltdown,which he says exposed Wall Street’s excesses. Now a senior
vicepresident for a private equity firm specializing in the marijuanabusiness, Kane says he’s concerned
about upward mobility for the poorand calls wealthy politicians such as Romney "out of
touch."But Kane, now a registered independent, draws the line when it comes to higher taxes."A
dollar is best in your hand rather than the government’s," he says.___AssociatedPress Director of
Polling Jennifer Agiesta, News Survey SpecialistDennis Junius, and writers Suzette Laboy in Miami and
Kristen Wyatt inDenver contributed to this report.Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All
rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten orredistributed.