The impact of IQ on income is increasing past 135 and linear. It *probably* is lower than the impact below 135, but it’s still there.

Comparison of Means

Dependent: WORDSUM

Row:ISCO88(r:110-1120;1226-1240;1311-1314;2112-2460;3100-3480;4100-4223;5100-5220;6113-6150;7110-7520;8111-8400;9110-9333)

Selection Filter: RACE(1);HISPANIC(1);age(30-100);year(2000-2010)

Results:

110-1120 (politicians, I think, perhaps with some military mixed) – 6.94
1226-1240 (corporate managers) – 6.88
1311-1314 (managers of small enterprises) – 6.45
2112-2460 (professionals) – 7.46
3100-3480 (technicians and associate professionals ) – 6.84
4100-4223 (clerks) – 6.57
5100-5220 (service workers and shop and market sales workers ) – 6.02
6113-6150 (skilled agricultural and fishery workers) – 5.30
7110-7520 (craft and related trades workers ) – 5.84
8111-8400 (plant and machine operators and assemblers) – 5.29
9110-9333 (elementary occupations ) – 5.56

The only relevant point that I can conclude from that is “professionals” are indeed more intelligent (or, at least, have a higher vocabulary) than “corporate managers” (of course, it is very possible that these “professionals” more intelligent than “corporate managers” could have also a higher income)

The relative high wordsum of “elementary occupations” is an illusion created by a very high result in the category 9110 (street vendors, I think) – 7.11, higher than managers and politicians (probably some post-hippie types with college degrees).

Codes of ISCO-88:

http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/isco/isco88/publ4.htm
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ier/research/links/isco88/isco88.pdf

I think that this point is not much relevant – the essence of the theory “Income peaks when your IQ is at 130″ is that very high IQ people are more prone to choose arcane fields of work with (comparatively) little financial reward; then, to test that theory, you can’t compare people in the same field of work (scientists with scientists, for example).

“x = your IQ – 10 points. all IQ above x is zero marginal returns on any domain you wish to measure”

implicit in this theorem is that “you” are more intelligent than the social elite (and probably could be even a victim of your own intelligence).

Does anyone have any data refutes half sigma findings on the GSS: http://www.halfsigma.com/2011/07/higher-verbal-ability-leads-to-lower-income.html

Obviously not really true but an element of truth maybe – especially with the importance of IT in generating competive advantage over the last 30 years.

But for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the term has some meaning consonant with the usual definition of “merit”. To then assert that the fact that the top 1% of earners have a mean IQ of 108 implies in itself that we are not a meritocracy is preposterous.

I’m not saying we are a meritocracy. (In politics, I’d say it’s virtually self-evident that we are not, by any rational definition of the term.) I’m saying that if one wishes to determine whether we are, it makes no sense to focus on a single variable such as IQ as one’s sole or main measure of “merit”.

The fact that these theory is very popular could be a point in its favour (meaning that matches with the conclusions that many people observe in the real world); however, it is possible that the reason being simply that the “genius” working as librarians or high school teachers are much more “visible” to the average persons than the genius earning millions in Wall Street or Sillicon Valley.

Or perhaps there is some confusion between IQ and Openness in that.

One example of a distortion:

“most people would be surprised that the average K-8 teacher is about as smart as the average person in the top 1% of the income distribution”

Most K-8 teachers were education majors. Based on SAT derived IQ, people who enter college as education majors are the least intelligent of all college students. Still, I would expect them to have a strong vocabulary.

Whether serious or not, it is a reminder that possessing intellect is disconnected with being educated.

A general trend over a large population sample doesn’t mean that every member of the population will mirror that trend perfectly. Exceptions happen. If you’re going to flaunt an IQ number, might want to think about doing so in a less silly way.

I’m not trying to sound mean. Just got a degree in psych myself, and I always felt bad for the students who inadvertently provided comic relief for the class by saying stuff like that.