How poor is Cheboygan, exactly?

I recently sat in on a community meeting, called by a civic organization that is going through a difficult transition. I won’t get into details, but at one point it was suggested that, in order to be on good financial footing, the organization might need an endowment of $1 million. That is, we were told, what some other county-level organizations in other parts of the state found necessary. Here’s the reason: a sum that large, properly invested, can be expected to generate a steady return of at least 4% — which would be enough to pay a fair (but not great) salary for an executive director ($40,000).

That number took some of us aback. Could little old Cheboygan generate an endowment that large? It’s just taken as commonsense that our county is poor, and that we lack the resources to accomplish what other counties do.

By and large that story is true. The latest ALICE report from the United Way shows that 42% of the households in our county are either poor or working poor. No doubt about it: our county needs investment, from sources outside the county. It needs more government investment.

But it is not the whole story. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, “The New Gilded Age,” provides a deep dive into income inequality around the country. The gap between the incomes of the 1% and the 99% has grown to levels not seen since…the Gilded Age. And that is true in Cheboygan County, too. It turns out that we have our own Gilded families.

Here’s what I found: first, there are 11,348 households in Cheboygan County. So when we talk about our local 1%, we are talking about only 113 households. What is the minimum one has to earn in order to be a member of the Cheboygan 1% (the “threshold income”)? Not much, by national standards: $252,046. That is the combined income of a couple of doctors, bankers or lawyers. That is the minimum. But the average annual income of these Cheboygan 1% families is $588,623. Now we’re talking.

While that number is still not very big compared to the 1-percenters in neighboring Emmet County (where the average 1-percenter earns $1,276,653) or other regions around the country, it is still 19.4 times bigger than the average income of the other 99% in our county. We earn, on average, $30,360 per family.

The 113 families in our local 1% earn a combined annual income of $66,513,399. Thus, if they were to contribute just 1.5% of one year’s income, they could form a $1 million endowment. Imagine that: they could fix the finances of a necessary pillar in our community in the blink of an eye.

Keep in mind that these 113 families are just those listed by income. The EPI report leaves out all those families who have, for example, millions in stocks and other assets, but have a lower annual income than these 1% families. And it leaves out businesses and corporations that might also be called on for financial contributions.

There is a class of people here that could support many good causes, at minimal cost to their own families’ wealth. Now, if we just had their number, or knew where to find them. Knock knock — anyone home?