It seems those Occupy Wall Streeters were a lot closer to the 1 percent than they would like to admit.
A new study of the OWS movement in New York found that many of the protesters were highly educated and not nearly as down on their luck as they portrayed.
A third of protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York lived in households earning more than $100,000 and more than two- thirds were employed professionals, according to the study from CUNY’s Joseph A. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies.
The study also showed the movement was mostly organized by experienced political operatives and nearly all of those involved — 76 percent — were college educated.
Of those, half had graduate degrees and among those with bachelor’s degrees, and 28 percent had attended elite universities.
“Occupy Wall Street was not a spontaneous eruption but rather an action carefully planned by committed activists,” the study concluded.
Additionally, the study found that the protesters were also disproportionately men — 55 percent — and many were white.
“It’s a pretty affluent demographic and highly educated,” said Professor Ruth Milkman, one of the study’s authors. “Many were the children of the elite, if you will.”
While they weren’t all homeless, many of the under-30 crowd who participated in the movement were recently laid off or underemployed, with nearly a quarter saying they work fewer than 35 hours a week.
“Most OWS activists and supporters were deeply skeptical of the mainstream political system as an effective vehicle for social change,” the study found.
About 750 protesters were surveyed for the study, which took about six months.