Wealth Inequality

The Congressional Research Service released a report on the distribution of wealth in the United States.  One of the most glaring statistics is the fact that the poorer half of American households have just 1.1% of the country's wealth.  The report indicates that share had generally been around 3% until the recent financial crisis.  Meanwhile, the top one tenth of households have 74.5% of the wealth.

Another way to see the skewed distribution is by comparing the mean amount of wealth to the median level of wealth.  If everyone were given an equal share (the mean), each household would have $498,800.  But the dividing point between the poorer half and richer half (the median) is $77,380.  The mean is that much larger because relatively few very rich people skew the calculation.  And the ratio between the mean and median is the highest in the 21 years covered by the report.