15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Cliché, sure, but it's also more true than at any time since the Gilded Age. The poor are getting poorer, wages are falling behind inflation, and social mobility is at an all-time low.  If you're in that top 1%, life is grand.

The gap between the top 1% and everyone else hasn't been this bad since the Roaring Twenties

This chart shows average income of the top 1% as a multiple of average income of the bottom 90% (via The Nation).

Half of America has 2.5% of the wealth

Source: Institute for Policy Studies

Half of America has only 0.5% of America's stocks and bonds

Source: Institute for Policy Studies

Look at the wealth gap grow!

Source: Professor G. William Domhoff

The last two decades were great...if you were a CEO or owner. Not if you were anyone else.

Real average earnings have not increased in 50 years

And savings rates are sinking

Despite the myth of social mobility, poor Americans have a SLIM CHANCE of rising to the upper middle class

Source: NBER

Republican tax cuts have significantly increased the wealth gap

Source: NYT

Meanwhile, income tax is getting lower and lower for the rich

America spreads its wealth FAR LESS than other developed countries

America's income spread is nearly twice the OECD average

Source: Economist

The income gap is NOT growing in other countries, like France

Inequality is worst around Wall Street and Oil Land

Source: The Map Scroll

If you aren't in the top 1%, then you're getting a bum deal

Normalized to 1979, the top 1% have seen their share of America's income more than double. The bottom 90% have seen their portion shrink.
Source: Afferent Input