America is No. 1 – At Income Inequality
You can’t really appreciate how phenomenally unequal the United States has become until you take a gander at America’s peer nations. Consider the UK, for instance. Britain has emerged as one of the world’s most unequal nations. New official UK stats certainly reinforce that reputation.
In the UK, the new numbers show, the richest 10 percent hold 45 percent of the nation’s private wealth. The poorest half own just 9 percent.
But this UK inequality simply pales against the inequity across the pond. In the United States, the latest Federal Reserve figures point out, the top 10 percent owns 75.3 percent of our national wealth. And the households of the bottom half? Their wealth holdings add up to just 1.1 percent.
The good news? This colossal U.S. maldistribution of wealth has at long last become a matter of mainstream political debate in a presidential election year. That rates as progress. But we desperately need to make a whole lot more.
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This has been reposted from Sam Pizzigati's monthly newsletter Too Much.
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