Statistically Speaking: Inequality by the Numbers |
| Just how economically unequal has the United States become over recent decades? We chart that question below, from a variety of different income and wealth angles, tapping the latest available federal government research. |
| Wealth
in the United States: How Concentrated? |
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Try visualizing wealth in the United States as a three-slice pie, with one slice going to the top 1 percent, one to the next richest 9 percent, and one to everyone else. In 2007, America's top 1 percent held nearly $3.3 trillion more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent, according to Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data released early in 2009. But these figures actually understate the wealth of America's richest because each Federal Reserve wealth survey “specifically excludes” individuals who appear in the survey year's Forbes magazine list of America's 400 richest. In 2007, the Forbes 400 held over $1.5 trillion in wealth, over 2 percent of the nation's total wealth — and nearly as much as the entire bottom 50 percent of Americans combined. |
| America's
Income Distribution: Quite a Bit Top-Heavy, Too |
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Income — what
people take in on an annual basis — also tilts
toward the top in today's United States. In 2006, the
nation's top 1 percent raked in 50 percent more income
than the bottom 40 percent, according to
Congressional Budget Office data released
in April 2009. CBO researchers include in their “comprehensive income” calculations all the standard household revenue streams — wages, dividends, interest, and the like — and lots more, too, from food stamps and Social Security to employer-paid health benefits. |
| So What's New? Don't
the Rich Always Get Richer? |
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Actually, no. A century ago, income in America skewed steeply toward the top, but in the mid 20th century the United States became significantly more equal, as data from economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty show here, before turning back toward greater inequality. Note: Saez and Piketty crunch their data from tax records. Congressional Budget Office researchers, as noted above, add in-kind income sources, including all forms of government assistance. That's why calculations of income shares can vary. |
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