According to a new study from sociologists at the City University of New York, more than a third of activists in the Occupy movement in New York City had household incomes above $100,000, placing them at the cusp of the top quintile of income distribution in America.

The National Review Online today reports that researchers who surveyed 729 people who participated in a May 1 rally last year found that they were more affluent, whiter, younger, much more highly educated. The survey also found that the protestors were more likely to be male.

Non-Hispanic whites constituted 62 percent of all respondents, though they make up only 33 percent of New York City residents. So much for representative.

While only about a third of Americans hold bachelors’ degrees, 76 percent of respondents who had completed their education had a four-year college degree and 39 percent had graduate degrees. Among college graduates, more than a quarter went to top-ranked schools, which might help explain why the majority of graduates under 30 had some student debt. While 10 percent of participants were unemployed, 71 percent were employed in professional occupations. Eight percent were “blue collar.”

In 2011, the Daily Caller and FrontpageMag both reported the intriguing make-up of the Occupy movement, but were at the time dismissed by the mainstream media and by the protestors themselves. This new study will certainly make for uncomfortable reading amongst those who claim the group was the "99 percent" rebelling against the 1 percent elite.

The study found that “white respondents were also significantly more likely to be ‘actively involved’ than people of color” in the movement. The protests were largely organised by a core group of experienced activists who were “disproportionately white and male,” according to the researchers.

One interviewee involved in training sessions described the leaders as “a predominantly young white male group.” Another said they were “more privileged and more college-educated, and sometimes beyond college-educated.”

“It’s a pretty affluent demographic and highly educated,” Professor Ruth Milkman, one of the authors of the study, told the New York Post. “Many were the children of the elite, if you will.”