Summary: Reading Time: 4 minutesHow bad is wealth inequality in the US? How bad is income inequality in the US? This reality of ignorance allows the problems of wealth and income inequality to not only persist, but it also insures that the issues will never be dealt with.<br> How Bad Is Inequality in the US?<br> <br> * Currently the rate of <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/05/u-s-income-inequality-on-rise-for-decades-is-now-highest-since-1928/">economic inequality in America is worse than at any point in American history since 1928</a> (the year before the start of the Great Depression).<br> * After accounting for taxes and transfers, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/07/5-facts-about-economic-inequality/">the United States has the second highest level of inequality</a> among the world’s developed countries. This has increased under both Republican and Democrat leadership. That accounts for both how bad is wealth inequality in the US and also how bad is income inequality in the US.<br> * Americans in the top 10% income bracket earn an average of <a href="http://inequality.org/income-inequality/">almost 9 times more</a> than those in the bottom 90%. Those in the famous top 1% earn a whopping thirty-eight times more than those in the bottom 90%.<br> * A lot of press coverage and protest activity has been directed against income inequality but <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w18559">the bigger story is about wealth inequality</a>. In the United States, the top 20% own 88.9% of all the wealth in the country.<br> <br> <br> <br> The US is a Major Part in a Global Problem of Inequality<br> <br> * <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38613488">Oxfam released a study</a> in 2017 announcing that 8 of the world’s richest people possessed the same amount of wealth as the world’s poorest half. This goes beyond the questions how bad is wealth inequality in the US or how bad is income inequality in the US, but the US is a big part of the story of global inequality.<br> * <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/26/worlds-witnessing-a-new-gilded-age-as-billionaires-wealth-swells-to-6tn">In 2017 billionaires increased their combined global wealth by almost a fifth to a record $6 trillion– more than twice the GDP of the United Kingdom</a>.<br> * There are now 1,542 billionaires across the world, after 145 multi-millionaires saw their wealth in 2016 tick over into nine-zero fortunes last year, according to the <a href="https://www.ubs.com/microsites/billionaires-report/en/new-value.html">UBS / PwC Billionaires report</a>. This increase in wealth among the super rich took place under the policies of former President Obama’s – not President Trump. The world’s liberal leaders have overseen as much economic inequality as the conservative.<br> <br> The <a href="https://wp.me/p2iDfo-10V">pictures of inequality</a> are all around us. They demonstrate how bad is wealth inequality in the US and how bad is income inequality in the US everywhere from our healthcare to our entertainment. The problem is we have not learned to recognize these issues and problems for what they truly are.<br> <br> * The gap in life expectancy between the richest 1 percent and the poorest 1 percent now stands at between 10-15 years. Billionaires own our favorite sports teams while most Americans cannot afford tickets to these sports events.<br> * The stock market soared in 2017 and much of 2018. Only 54% of Americans were invested in the stock market.<br> <br> <br> In the portion of my podcast series on economic inequality where we look at the historical process through which this process has unfolded I noted how the gap between the rich and poor, as well as the rich and middle class, starting in the 1980s. The picture speaks for itself. Look at what happens in the 1980’s.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br>
