EZ

Eric Zwick

Things Eric Says on Podcasts

Where to Find Them

Eric Zwick has been a guest on Planet Money .

Recently: “Middlegarchs are the new Oligarchs” on Planet Money (September 2026).

What They Said

“There's a ton of dentists. So dentists earn more income than all of the professional sports leagues combined.” — Eric Zwick, Planet Money

Zwick, an economist who studies who actually makes up the top 1%, is walking the hosts down a ranked list of industries — dentists come in at number 21, ahead of most of what people picture when they picture wealth. He adds immediately that the comparison is "a funny statistic" that he thinks comes from a dental lobbying organization. His larger argument is that the road to the 1% runs through Main Street businesses, not Silicon Valley or Wall Street.

Planet Money · 2026-09-25 Permalink → Listen →
Planet Money Around 11:25 into the episode
Greg Rosalsky

Dentists.

Sarah Gonzalez

Multi-millionaire, stealthy, wealthy dentists? Yeah,

Eric Zwick

dentists. There's a ton of dentists. So dentists earn more income than all of the professional sports leagues combined.

Greg Rosalsky

Wow.

Eric Zwick

Which is like a funny statistic from, I think, I mean, from a dental lobbying organization that we like talking about.

Greg Rosalsky

Ironically, I'm smiling at that statistic right now. Your teeth are great, Greg. Oh. So, anyways, the road to the 1%, it turned out to be pretty darn diverse. It wasn't just like Silicon Valley and Wall Street. It's like businesses you see walking down your local main street. And

Speaker names from our own diarization · position estimated from where the line sits in the episode

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