US Sees Biggest Wealth Gap in a Hundred Years

New research says the ultra-rich in the US have returned to holding as much of the country’s wealth as they did nearly a century ago.

The 400 richest Americans, the top 0.00025 percent of the population, have tripled their share of the nation’s wealth since the early 1980s. Those 400 Americans own more than the 150 million adults in the bottom 60% of the wealth distribution.

America’s ultra-rich haven’t held this much of the country’s wealth since the Roaring Twenties. In between then and now, the richest people held a comparatively smaller percentage of the country’s wealth.

Research on the issue also points to growing wealth concentration in France, China, the UK and Russia.

 

 

Photo: “Kykuit: The Rockefeller Estate” by Marcela is licensed under CC BY 2.0