10-18-2008, 12:23 AM
mattkime wrote: I'm curious how that relates to wealth. i have no idea, but the top 1% of filers may very well have 40% of the income.
That's actually very close to being true. I wasn't able to find any really current numbers, but I'm sure the situation hasn't been getting any better over the last few years.
According to one article, "In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2001, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 33.4% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 51%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 84%, leaving only 16% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth, the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 39.7%."
There are also a number of charts that show the balance has been shifting in favor of those at the upper end over time. Furthermore, they examined debt, and there's an inverse relationship. It's too bad I couldn't find anything more current. If anybody can, I'd be interested in seeing it. Here's a link to the article I was reading.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesameric...ealth.html