* From a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial…

A democracy cannot long survive as a democracy if it’s for sale to the highest bidder, ignoring the interests of ordinary members of society in favor of those wealthy enough to influence the election outcomes.

And make no mistake: The interests and preferences of the wealthy elite are far different than those of ordinary Americans. That seems self-evident enough, but it was confirmed by a 2013 survey of the richest 1 percent of Americans. The study found that the priorities of America’s elite differ markedly from the those of the rest of the nation — and that the rich are far more likely to win those policy arguments.

For instance, while 52 percent of all Americans believe the rich should be heavily taxed, only 17 percent of the wealthy agree. Taxes on the highest-earning Americans are far less than half of what they once were, with little chance they’ll be going up anytime soon.

A strong majority — 59 percent of Americans — believe that Social Security should be expanded rather than cutting benefits and raising the eligibility age. Only 3 percent of America’s wealthiest agree. Despite the fact that simply eliminating the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes would be enough to guarantee the program’s solvency well into the future, there is no serious proposal to lift the cap, currently set at $118,500.

More than three-quarters of Americans believe that the minimum wage should be high enough that a full-time worker can earn his or her family out of poverty. Only 40 percent of the wealthiest agree. The federal minimum wage hasn’t gone up since 2009.

In essence, the study found that the United States is more oligarchy than democracy. Policy decisions at the local, state and federal level too often reflect the will of the wealthy rather than the will of the people.

The poll the Post-Dispatch relies on was also used in a recent New York Times article on the governor’s election.

But the survey wasn’t of rich Americans, it was of rich Chicago-area residents.

From the poll…

The pilot study as a whole yielded a total of 104 interviews. After a brief false start in the autumn of 2010, during winter and spring 2011 NORC interviewers used the refined sampling design (described above) to contact, win the cooperation of, and interview 83 Chicago-area respondents, who provided the data for most of the analyses reported here.

Emphasis added. If you look at the accompanying charts, there’s always “n=83″ at the bottom, meaning 83 is the number of people interviewed.

* Back to the poll…

Most of our respondents fell into or near the top 1 percent of US wealth-holders. Their average (mean) wealth was $14,006,338; the median was $7,500,000. To give a further idea of their economic standing: respondents’ average income was $1,040,140. About one third of them (32.4 percent) reported incomes of $1,000,000 or more.

* BGA…

In 2014, Illinois had an estimated 265,000 millionaires, according to Phoenix Global Wealth Monitor, a market research firm.

But that’s based on assets, not incomes. It’s also statewide, not just in the Chicago area. I can’t find better numbers, though, so assume the target interview size is half that and it’s 132,000 people or so. Maybe somebody else can find better numbers on the interwebtubes and I’ll update.

Raise your hand if you think 83 people out of a group of difficult to contact, very private people is a sufficient sample size to emphatically state that this poll “found that the United States is more oligarchy than democracy.”

I’m not saying the finding is wrong. You can calculate a margin of error for that sample size and target population. I’m just saying that I don’t have a huge amount of confidence in it.