Wealth Gap

Using data from the U.S. Federal Reserve, Matt Bruenig from the People's Policy Project illustrates the staggering growth of wealth inequality over about 30 years. In constant dollars, assets other than consumer durable goods increased by two and half times for the top 1 percent of Americans, while the bottom 50 percent now have more debt than assets.

Update (October 27):  Compared to 2013, Credit Suisse finds that the ratio of the number of poor to USD millionaires in the world has gone from 100 to about 60. The ratio of wealth owned by millionaires to poor has gone from 13.5 to about 25 times as much. So mean wealth at the low end went from about $2300 to $2200 while the upper end went from about $3,000,000 to $3,300,000.

Update (October 31):  Lawrence Wittner points out another aspect of the wealth gap.

[I]n 2018, the average pay of CEOs at America’s 350 top firms hit $17.2 million―an increase, when adjusted for inflation, of 1,007.5 percent since 1978. By contrast, the typical worker’s wage, adjusted for inflation, grew by only 11.9 percent over this 40-year period.

Update (November 10):  Bloomberg News also finds a growing wealth gap between the top one percent and the entire middle class due in part to the 2017 tax cuts.

The assets of the richest Americans totaled about $35.4 trillion in the second quarter. That’s just short of the $36.9 trillion held by the tens of millions of Americans who make up the middle and upper-middle classes (the 50th to the 90th percentiles).

Update (December 27):  The Bloomberg Billionaires Index reports that the 500 richest people in the world gained $1.2 trillion in wealth to a total of $5.9 trillion.  That's a 25 percent increase in just one year. The top five are Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Bernard Arnault, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg worth a total of $503 billion. The U.S. has half of the 50 richest people in the world. They have $1.3 trillion.

Meanwhile, from a Gallup Poll:

A record 25 percent of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition in the past year because of the cost, up from 19 percent a year ago and the highest in Gallup's trend. Another 8 percent said they or a family member put off treatment for a less serious condition, bringing the total percentage of households delaying care due to costs to 33 percent, tying the high from 2014.

Bob Hennelly further notes:

The New York Times reported that Americans borrowed $88 billion in 2018 to cover health care costs.

 Or in other words, 7.3 percent of that $1.2 trillion single year's worth of growth for the lucky few.

Update (February 2, 2020):  CBS News used a pie to illustrate wealth inequality in the United States. Shoppers' guesses were wildly wrong--the real distribution gives 9 of 10 slices to the top 20 percent with 4 of those for the top one percent.

Update (August 20, 2020):  Chuck Collins and Omar Ocampo report that as of August 13 the twelve richest people in the United States are worth over $1 trillion.

The Oligarchic Dozen are Jeff Bezos ($189.4b), Bill Gates ($114b), Mark Zuckerberg ($95.5b), Warren Buffett ($80b), Elon Musk ($73b), Steve Balmer ($71b), Larry Ellison ($70.9b), Larry Page ($67.4b), Sergey Brin ($65.6b), Alice Walton ($62.5b), Jim Walton ($62.3b) and Rob Walton ($62b).

Since March 18th, the beginning of the pandemic, this Oligarchic Dozen have seen their combined wealth increase $283 billion, an increase of almost 40 percent.

To be fair, their collective wealth had declined by $96 billion in the first part of 2020. Amy Lamare has previously reported that Bill Gates first became the world's richest man in 1995 with $12.9 billion (about $22 billion in current dollars).

Update (September 3, 2020):  Emily Peck reports on how the pandemic has only highlighted wealth and income inequality.

Employment rates for low-wage workers are down 16% from where they were before the pandemic, but employment is down only 0.5% for those earning more than $60,000 a year.

Nick Baker also discusses the growing inequalities.

Bloomberg News reports that the 500 richest people in the world have increased their wealth by $871 billion so far this year, though “the surge in wealth is especially concentrated in the upper ranks of the billionaires index.” During the week of August 24–28 alone, the world’s 500 wealthiest people increased their wealth by $209 billion. The world’s 10 richest billionaires now collectively have more than $1 trillion.

Update (October 9, 2020):  The pandemic may be the best thing that ever happened for the rich.

The "Riding the storm" study, published on Wednesday by Swiss bank UBS and accounting firm PwC, found that global billionaire wealth climbed to $10.2 trillion between April and July this year, up from $8 trillion at the start of April.

That reflected an increase in wealth of 27.5% and exceeded the previous peak of $8.9 trillion recorded at the end of 2017. The number of billionaires worldwide also reached a new high of 2,189, compared to the previous record of 2,158 in 2017.

Update (October 10, 2020):  Fifty people equals 50 percent in the United States.

The 50 richest people increased their wealth since the beginning of 2020 by nearly $339 billion to almost $2 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The poorest 50% of Americans — about 165 million people — hold just $2.08 trillion of net worth, or 1.9% of all household wealth, according to Federal Reserve statistics.

More broadly, the top 1% of Americans currently have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion. They hold 30.4% of all U.S. household wealth and more than half of the equity in corporations and in mutual fund shares, according to the data.

Update (November 25, 2020):  The Institute for Policy Studies reports that "the wealth of 650 U.S. billionaires approached a total of $4 trillion, with more than $1 trillion ($1.008 trillion) in growth since March 2020". That's an increase of 34 percent in just eight months. The rest of us aren't doing as well.

The net worth of this minuscule group is twice the amount of wealth of the bottom 50% of U.S. households — about 160 million people.

The U.S. unemployment rate was nearly 7% last month — with over 11 million Americans considered unemployed — nearly twice the level of February, before the pandemic hit.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s survey of American households found that from Oct. 28-Nov. 9, over 15 million households — or 28% of renters surveyed — had either “no confidence” or only “slight confidence” of being able to make their next month’s payment.

Update (January 3, 2021):  The United Nations forecasts that the number of people living in extreme poverty will increase by 207 million due to the pandemic to a total of one billion by 2030. Meanwhile,

Bloomberg's year-end report on the wealth of the world's billionaires shows that the richest 500 people on the planet added $1.8 trillion to their combined wealth in 2020, accumulating a total net worth of $7.6 trillion.

Update (March 23, 2021):  A follow up report from IPS for one full year of the pandemic.

Update (January 16, 2022):  About 17 million people have died worldwide since the pandemic began. Meanwhile

In a report released Sunday, Oxfam detailed how the wealth of billionaires increased more than ever before over the past two years: The 10 richest people in the world — all white men — more than doubled their wealth, from a collective $700 billion to $1.5 trillion.

Update (May 2, 2022):  The Federal Reserve reports that net wealth in the United States grew by $18 trillion during 2021 to a total of $142 trillion. The top one percent now hold 32 percent of total wealth, the next nine percent hold 37 percent, the next forty percent hold 27 percent, and the bottom half hold 3 percent of total wealth.

The "good" news is that the bottom half did have the highest percent growth--since the share is so small.

And just for fun, the per capita amounts using a total population of 332 million:  $14 million, $1.8 million, $290 thousand, $24 thousand.  Overall per capita would be $430 thousand.