Each of nine individuals (Gates, Buffett, 2 Kochs, 4 Waltons, Zuckerberg) made, on average, so much from his/her investments since January, 2013 that a median American worker would need a quarter of a million years to catch up.
American wealth grew from $64 trillion to $80 trillion (a 25 percent increase!) in two years, reflecting the unprecedented surge in America’s productivity and wealth over the past few years. Our productivity is rewarding a relatively few people. In addition, many of the top money-makers are damaging other American lives. The top nine include four people (Waltons) who pay their employees so little that the State have to pay almost $6,000 a year to support each one of the employees. And it includes two people (Kochs) who have polluted our air and water to enrich themselves while quietly funding organizations that threaten to dismantle what’s left of our democracy. The Forbes 400 made almost enough in one year to fund the entire welfare safety net.
Out of that $5,350,000,000,000 ($5.35 trillion) made since the start of 2013, the bottom 80 percent of America took an average of less than $5,000 each. The richest 6 to 20 percent fared better, taking an average of about $65,000.
From that $5.35 trillion, the richest 2 to 5 percent took an average of about $343,000. The one-percenters need to be split up into the rich, the super-rich, and the filthy-rich:
—-The more common members of the one-percent (1,068,000 families) made over $1,000,000 each ($1,068 billion total)
—-The .1 percent (108,000 families) made about $4 million each ($480 billion total)
—-The .01 percent made about $40 million each ($480 billion total)
The unimaginably rich Forbes 400 each took, on average, almost $1,500,000,000 ($1.5 billion) since January, 2013.
That brings us to the Final 9 (Gates, Buffett, 2 Kochs, 4 Waltons, Zuckerberg). Each of them has accumulated, on average, over $13,000,000,000 ($13 billion) since January 2013.
From here
Hat-tip to Citizen of the World for the link
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