  It is commonly believed that patterns of social ties affect individuals'
economic status. Here, we translate this concept into an operational definition
at the network level, which allows us to infer the economic wellbeing of
individuals through a measure of their location and influence in the social
network. We analyze two large-scale sources: telecommunications and financial
data of a whole country's population. Our results show that an individual's
location, measured as the optimal collective influence to the structural
integrity of the social network, is highly correlated with personal economic
status. The observed social network patterns of influence mimics the patterns
of economic inequality. For pragmatic use and validation, we carry out a
marketing campaign that shows a three-fold increase in response rate by
targeting individuals identified by our social network metrics as compared to
random targeting. Our strategy can also be useful in maximizing the effects of
large-scale economic stimulus policies.
