I think the best place to start this discussion is to better identify the 1%.  As of 2011 Federal tax data, an income of $389,000 puts you in the top 1% of U.S. household earners.  This group comprises about 1.4 million people and earns almost 19% of all income in the U.S.  Along that same line, the group of 1% earners (a.k.a. one-percenters) pays about 35% of all income taxes.  That statistic indicates an even larger disparity in tax payments vs. income, but that is how our progressive tax system is designed...those who make more pay more.

To better identify the 1%, it helps to look at other income brackets.  For instance, an annual income of $33,000 puts an earner just over the mid-point and into the top 50% of all income earners.  The relation of the top 1% to this mid-point income is over 11 to 1.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the 0.1% of earners with annual incomes over $600,000 and the 0.01% with incomes over $30,000,000 per year.  The relation of the 0.01% earners to the 1% is over 75 to 1.  That disparity, within the top 1% of income earners, is often missed in the debate over income inequality.  Perhaps even more important than these income levels is the rate at which these income categories are growing their share of total national wealth.  Here we see the wealth share of a one-percenter growing at the same rate as the mid-point 50% earners (i.e. not growing at all).  That is correct, even those making $389,000 per year are not gaining wealth share.  Since 1990 the 0.1% has seen its wealth share grow almost 60% and the 0.01% wealth share has grown nearly 200%.  If the 1% are considered rich, then these groups are the super-rich and the uber-rich.